Canon started out as a business dedicated to office machinery, mostly photocopiers, and was one of the first “general electronics” manufacturers to branch out into digital cameras. Canon very briefly had a film camera line as a complementary business, then got rid of it, though they still make fine, high quality optics for 35 mm SLR Cameras.
Canon’s cameras are known for their compactness and their generally high end feature set. They’re also known for having a good, but not great, menu system for finding all of those features.
In a world where digital cameras are parts of telephones, what is the benefit of having a separate digital camera? Well, when dealing with a Canon, the primary benefit is the high end optics – most Canon cameras, even in their power shot line, and the Canon digital Elph line, have excellent optics for cameras of their body types and sizes, and even the smallest of Camera’s cameras has better optical control and color resolution and protection than the best digital phone camera ever will.
Canon is a part owner in the fabs that make the CCDs that form the nucleus of how digital cameras work; this means they get first pick off of the quality assurance checks, and this shows up across the line. It is most apparent in Canon’s high end digital SLR line. (SLR means “Single Lens Reflex”) which can use conventional 35 millimeter lenses. Canon uses the PowerShot brand name (somewhat confusingly) for both their high end and mid range digital cameras.
Canon is also very innovative – they were one of the first manufacturers to focus on very small digital cameras that were uncompromising in their features. Their Digital Elph camera type dominates the small camera market for taking snapshots, and every year sees the capacity and resolution of those cameras increase as Moore’s Law works on CCDs.
Here’s a brief overview of some of Canon’s more popular camera models:
Canon’s current high end state of the art is the Powershot TX, which combines an interesting vertical configuration with the ability to shoot widescreen HD digital video, and a 10x optical zoom – all in a camera that measures about what a thick stack of business cards does. With top of the line image stabilization, the TX1 is bridging the gap from “pocket snap shot” camera and “low end digital camera”. It’s an innovative design.
For those who prefer the manual controls of a SLR film camera, the Canon product of choice is the Powershot S5 IS. A conventional camera body and the ability to swap out 35 millimeter lenses make this a good camera for someone who’s not entirely comfortable with the “gadget joy” of more modern digital formats. The camera has a lovely 12x optical zoom, and has Canon’s latest generation of image stabilization technology. The low end of Canon’s “professional grade” cameras is the excellent Powershot G9, which gives all the optical control a professional (or high end amateur) photographer would want, for manually focusing in on the subject of a photograph – with a 12.1 megapixel CCD, it’s got a lot of resolution to work with.
Canon is in the process of changing model numbers – for their older Powershot models, the numbers usually start with SD, a model number that’s somewhat indicative of the megapixels of the CCD, and such. An example of this is the 8 megapixel SD 870 IS, with a 4x optical zoom. Going up from there is the Powershot SD890 IS, which features a 5x optical zoom and 10 megapixel CCD (it wasn’t that long ago that 10 megapixel CCDs were considered the province of professional photographers only). The Powershot SD850 IS, which has an 8 megapixel CCD and a 4x zoom is often less expensive than the nearly identical SD870 – the 870 model has firmware upgrades.
At the bottom of the older Powershot range is the S770, with a whopping 10 megapixel CCD, but the older 3x optical zoom. The SD790 adds face detection and image stabilization to the same camera frame.
As with all the Digital ELPH models, the cameras are built around the idea of being small enough to take anywhere, and capable enough for semi-serious photography. Most of Canon’s newer models are migrating to 10 megapixel CCDs, which is a great boon to photographers, as image quality is a direct correlation to the number of pixels you can capture.
In part owing to some confusion over the various models of Digital Elphs, where higher numbers indicate more features, Canon is launching its latest iterations with a different numbering scheme, starting with the low end SD1000. This is Canon’s cheap “low end” camera, though at 7.1 megapixels (the smallest Canon currently makes) and a 3x optical zoom, it’s an incredible camera for the price.
Canon’s new midrange snapshot camera is the is the Powershot SD1100, which is designed as a consumer camera and is available in a wide array of colors. With a 16x Optical Zoom, and a 10 megapixel CCD, the Powershot SD1100 is an incredibly capable camera for its size (indeed, some say that the 16x zoom is a challenge to use with the controls on the device itself.) It is, however, quite an impressive iteration of the Digital Elph format. It’s now a bit harder to determine which features are on a given camera from reading the model numbers with this scheme, but it appears that (at least on their low and midrange) cameras, Canon is trying to make it much easier to just “pick a camera and go” for the typical consumer.
All Canon digital cameras use Compact Flash for their storage media, which is an industry standard that allows you to plug your flash cards into a wide array of devices to pull the pictures off of them – they also have a number of features designed for removing red eye, and are compatible with both Macintosh and Windows operating systems. If you use Linux, you can still get the photos off the cards with a card reader, but none of the bundled software will work. They all come with a USB 2.0 connector and cable, making loading photos in to your computer straightforward.
Whatever kind of digital photography you want to keep in your life, Canon has a camera for you, and your needs. Use Canon cameras to preserve those moments you want to keep forever.
