Digital Home Thoughts: The Canon SD870 IS

A few months ago, I dropped my beloved Canon SD800 IS camera, lens extended, onto a hardwood floor. The immediate damage was that the lens was bent and wouldn't retract upon a power down: I gave it a gentle pull to one side and it seemed to correct itself. One thing that never fixed itself, however, was the auto-retracting lens cover - it would sometimes, randomly not open properly. The fix was to tap it a few times on the lens, power down, then power up again. Going through this procedure while trying to capture an important photo is infuriating of course, so I started looking for an opportunity to replace this camera. That opportunity presented itself in the form of a $159 in-store credit from Visions, a local electronics store, on an extended warranty that I never needed to use. The credit isn't entirely fair because it requires you purchase a minimum of $400 worth of product, but in my case it worked out perfectly: the SD870 IS was selling for $445, so after the discount, and factoring in taxes, I paid a mere $311 CAD (about $320 USD). Gotta' love that!

I looked briefly at other brands, but wasn't impressed by anything out there I'd read about. I briefly considered the 12 megapixel SD950 IS with its 2.5 inch LCD screen, but 8 megapixels is plenty for a point and shoot camera (all other things being equal), and I wanted the three inch LCD screen that the SD870 offered. The SD950 is also a 36mm to 133mm lens, whereas the SD870 IS offers a more wide-angle 28mm to 105mm range. The cameras are otherwise identical from what I can tell - other than the price jump that the SD950 demands ($50 to $100).

So how does the SD870 measure up to the SD800 it's replacing? Not surprisingly, they're very similar, because the SD800 wasn't out on the market for very long before Canon decided to replace it with the SD850 and SD870. Canon's product release cycle is starting to irritate me, but that's a subject for another post.


Figure 1: The SD870 is on the left, the SD800 is on the right.

Side by side, the cameras look like cousins, but not brothers. The big three-inch screen is the single most obvious difference: it's big, bright, and takes the place of the manual viewfinder in the SD800. I was a big fan of manual viewfinders even in the point and shoot era, but I had to admit to myself that I hardly ever used it and that losing it and gaining a 0.5 inch bigger screen was a worthy trade-off. The controls on the SD870 are also a bit different in that the mode selection wheel on the SD800 has vanished to make way for the bigger screen. Switching between camera mode (which includes auto and manual mode), special scene mode, and video mode, is now accomplished with a three-way toggle switch on the top. Photo and video playback is now accomplished by pressing the play button, an improvement over having to switch the mode dial to playback.

In terms of on-camera functionality, there are a few differences. The SD800 had a "fast frame" video mode, which captured 60fps at 640 x 480. For some reason, the SD870 doesn't offer that, topping out at 30fps 640 x 480. Instead, the SD870 has a time lapse mode, but only for video, not photos. The time lapse video mode offers one and two second options. I'm no expert on time-lapse capture, but I'd think that having a time lapse photo capture option would be much more useful than a video option.

The SD870 has an on-camera red-eye correction function, but not at the time of capture like some other cameras (Kodak comes to mind). Instead, you have the option to correct red-eye problems on the camera itself. It seems useless to me, because if I have to manually correct red-eye problems, I'd rather do it with software on my PC, not trusting a camera to get it right. I'd rather see Canon implement a capture-time red-eye reduction system. Canon still hasn't fixed some of the glaring omissions in the SD800, such as a battery meter that gives a % of battery life left rather than just the ultra-non granular "battery chunk" method.


Figure 2: The SD870 seems smaller somehow...

The SD870 feels a bit smaller in the hand, although it's technically a few millimetres taller than the SD800. The back of the SD800 is mostly flat, whereas the SD800 had a bezel around the screen edge, which may contribute to this impression. I think the SD870 is more attractive than the SD800, with the black rubberized plastic adding a touch of utilitarian class. My wife pointed out immediately that she liked the power button on the SD870 better the odd-shaped and completely recessed power button on the SD800. In this era of 1 GB SD cards for $10, Canon continues to insult its customers by bundling a 32 MB SD card. I'm waiting for a camera company to realize that a complete all-in-one solution is something that customers would appreciate: give them the camera, a 2 GB SD card, and maybe even some decent photo software like Photoshop Elements. I know, I know, it's a crazy concept.

I haven't taken many pictures yet with the SD870, but in many ways it's a cosmetic upgrade that shouldn't make SD800 owners jealous. If you own an SD800, there's absolutely no compelling reason to upgrade. If you have an older Canon Powershot, such as an SD400, the SD870 is a worthy upgrade. Now what should I do with my slightly-dysfunctional SD800?

Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys mobile devices, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He wishes Nikon made better point and shoot cameras.