Canon Powershot SD4000 IS – Quick Performance And Fine Low-Light Photos
Thumbs Up:
The Canon Powershot SD4000 IS delivers really decent quality low light photos; the camera comes with nice lens and delivers fast shooting performance.
Thumbs Down:
Most of the shooting modes of Canon Powershot SD4000 IS are hidden in the menu system; also the camera has limited shooting options in comparison to some of the other competing models.
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
Manufacturer: Canon USA
Part Number: CanonPowershotSD4000ISwhite
Price: $349.99
Product Type: Digital Cameras
Weight: 0.4 lbs
Dimensions (W x D x H) in inches: 3.9 x 0.9 x 2.1inches
Optical Sensor Type: CMOS
White balance: Automatic
White Balance Presets: Cloudy, Automatic, Fluorescent, Tungsten light, Custom and Fluorescent H
Software: Drivers & Utilities
Cables Included: A/V cable & USB cable
Connector Type: AV output & USB
Additional Features: AE/FE Lock & DPOF support
Shooting Programs: Portrait , Automatic , Kids , Night snapshot , Smile shot , Pets , Smart shutter , Indoor , Low light , High speed burst , Color swap , Color accent , Foliage , Fisheye , Beach , Snow , Stitch assist , Fireworks and Normal movie mode
Focus Adjustment: Automatic & Manual
Flash Modes: Red-eye reduction, Auto mode, Flash ON mode, Auto red-eye correction mode, and slow synchro and Flash OFF mode
Included Accessories: Battery charger, Lithium-ion battery pack, USB interface cable, Wrist strap and A/V cable
Camera Flash: Built-in
Special Effects: Neutral , Vivid , Sepia , Black & White , Lighter skin tone , Positive film , Vivid blue , Darker skin tone , Vivid red , Vivid green and Custom color
Battery Type: Lithium-ion
Razzle Dazzle:
The Canon Powershot SD4000 IS pretty similar to some of the Canon’s high-end Digital Elphs. The camera is a tad thick, but still is immensely pocketable and comfortable in holding and using. The camera is available in silver, black and red editions, in addition to an optional white version. The white version is the part of Canon’s deluxe kit, which includes a leather case and a metal next strap. We won’t rate the camera as a catchy model, but yes, the camera is attractive.
The camera has a huge 3-inch wide-screen LCD on its rear end. Though, the LCD here is decent on a whole, but the resolution for it is comparatively lower than expected from a higher-end pocket camera. The LCD gets sufficiently bright, and can be easily used even in bright sunlight. One of the strong points of the camera that even can compel a lot of potential buyers to get this camera is its 28mm equivalent wide-angle lens having a maximum aperture of f2.0. For plenty of photography fanatics, these features are way more important than the zoom range, which here is 3.8x, rather short in comparison to today’s market standards. Though, the combination of the two is great for landscapes and portraits in addition to its capability to let additional light in, so that you need to use comparatively less, higher ISOs and slower shutter speeds for low-light shooting.
Inside Dope:
The Canon Powershot SD4000 IS comes with the high-flying f2.0 lens from Canon’s PowerShot S90, which is one of the most prominent cameras since it was launched in 2009. The reason behind the success of S90 was its feature set (its f2.0 lens and manual shooting controls, primarily). This is what made is a catchy option for digital SLR users. So capitalizing on the fact that the f2.0 lens has benefits which the Snapshooters can also appreciate, Canon came up with the SD4000 IS we are talking about here.
The Powershot SD4000 IS also is one of company’s very first Digital Elph to have Shutter and Aperture priority modes, but still there is no raw capture support, no complete manual option and the camera doesn’t have the control ring, which made S90 a fun to use camera. Though, you do get 720p HD movie capture, which was not there in S90. The camera also is company’s very first model to feature a high-speed backside-illuminated CMOS sensor (BSI), although it’s still the emblematic compact-camera-size sensor, 1/2.3-inch type.
The top floor of Camera’s body houses a three-way shooting mode switch; a power button; and the shutter release having a zoom ring around it. The Power button here is flushed completely with the body, so it can be hard to find it out without looking at it. The zoom of the camera is controlled by a miniscule nub positioned on the on the ring. Though, it clearly is not easy and our fingers frequently slipped off it during the use.
The rest of the controls of the camera are rather simple, but finding instantly what you need can be really hard. Positioned on the right and in between the huge Menu and Playback buttons, there is an unmarked directional pad/Control Dial. Touching the dial brings up the description of the button on the display screen, this makes it easy to find out which direction to press for changing exposure, flash, focus settings and self timer. The only problem here is that even the slightest of the touch pops it up, so it will appear frequently while shooting, obscuring what you actually wants to shoot.
The dial here does help in fast navigation, though and for speedy changes to aperture and shutter speed in the semi manual shooting modes. Though, the movement of the dial is rather free, but you still can feel its individual stops while rotating it. On the right hand side of the camera body, there are the Mini-HDMI and Mini-USB ports, to let you connect the camera to monitor, HDTV or a computer. Positioned at the bottom are the memory and battery compartment, under a nonlocking door; though it does closes firmly. The battery life of the camera is rather slow and most importantly it doe not charges in the camera. Though you can get slightly extended battery life if you can limit the number of switching between shooting stills and video.
The shooting performance of the camera was slightly different from what we’ve seen in other Canon’s PowerShots and the camera turns on and gets ready for a completely off stage in 1.9 secs. Even the shot-to-shot timing here was decent, and without flash it was 2.4 secs, while with flash it becomes 3.6 secs.
The best thing came with the photo quality and the SD4000 IS delivered some of the finest photos we’ve seen from a camera having a BSI CMOS sensor. Canon has done a commendable job in balancing the noise and noise reduction. The color accuracy of the camera is pretty good and the camera delivered bright and vivid results.
Nitty Gritty:
The Canon Powershot SD4000 IS comes with vivid, wide-angle lens and a high-sensitivity sensor, both of which add up to a really fast and imposing low light performance.
