Canon PowerShot SD630 6MP Digital Elph Camera with 3x Optical Zoom (OLD MODEL)

I just received my Canon SD-630 in the mail today and can already say I am very happy with my purchase. I had been researching cameras the entire week, looking for the right one for my needs. When I went to the store, Best Buy, I had written down a few camera model numbers that caught my eye. Over the next few days it was interesting to see how my perceptions of these cameras had changed. I had at first liked the 7.1 Megapixel Sony I had put at the top of my list at Best Buy. I based this on merely the camera having a high megapixel count and the looks of the outer casing. But after getting on Amazon and reading product descriptions, going over reviews, and looking at shots submitted by customers all of my original perceptions changed. While the Sony may have looked good and had a higher megapixel count than my Canon, it was the features that attracted me to the SD-630. I liked that it had some interesting options to play around with besides just the usual camera settings like outdoor, indoor, etc... Besides the basics, the Canon has options like Color Accent and Color Swap. These features really let you produce some unique prints without having to do any post manipulation with programs such as Photoshop. I myself had done similar work with photos using Photoshop, to make certain objects color while the rest of the image remained black and white. But this takes time depending on the object and its nice to be able to achieve the same results without any work! Its also very easy to use and I took some great shots in no time. Another camera I was interested in was the Kodak V570. After reading the feature list on this camera, such as the Panorama Stitch and Wide Angle Lens I thought it was perfect. Plus the pictures I viewed looked very cool when incorporating these modes. But some of the reviews on the camera turned me away somewhat. Such as having to use the supplied dock as well as Kodak software just to upload the images to my computer or charge the battery. I like the flexibility of the Canon, allowing you to transfer images via USB cable or memory card without having to use any other software. The battery charger is also very compact, no cords or large battery trays, just a simple charger that has a folding plug for easy transport (the charger is the size of a small cell phone - probably smaller). Yet I still liked the Panorama Stitch option that the Kodak offered and was really considering this camera as my final pick. So I decided to go back to the store and look at these cameras again now that I had done the research and knew what I was looking for. It was a whole different experience than my first visit to Best Buy. When I played with the Kodak it just didn't live up to what I had hoped for. I was put off by the button layout and the overall feel of the camera when compared to the Canon. After finally figuring out how to do the Panorama Stitch, while it was a cool little feature, it just wasn't all that great on the camera. The screen is small and when your grouping so many different images together, 3, its hard to really see what you are doing and to get a shot exactly as you want. I'm sure after some use I would get use to it, but to get the full effect you would have to upload the image to a computer and look at it from there to see if it came out the way you intended. The camera just seemed simple in terms of functionality. The Canon, which I had tested out before this camera, was a whole different story. I really liked how everything was laid out and the big screen made looking at images so much easier. Thus when you used an option such as Color Accent, you could really get a sense of how the final product turned out and decide if you were happy with the shot (or needed to do a retake) without having to view the image on a computer. It has so many different options to play with that are very useful in the simplest terms; such as Vivid Colors. I took a few pictures of the same objects using this mode and some in just Auto. You can really see a nice subtle difference and in some cases the colors just pop when compared to normal. It is very nice to use and is a great compliment to the camera. Simple features such as this are excellent and let you take great pictures without having to adjust manual settings. But if you would like to tinker with manual options, the camera leaves plenty of room to do this as well (which was another feature I was looking for, as I wanted to get more involved with the camera over time). The video on this camera is also excellent. I remember taking videos on older digital cameras I have used and they were pretty low quality. I do a lot of video editing and such, and found the video option on this camera to be very nice. It really lets you take some quality footage, that if you showed a clip to someone off of your computer they would think it was taken with a camcorder. Another nice thing about the video is that you can use Color Accent and Color Swap, which I did not know was possible until reading the manual. It makes your video much more interesting if used in the right way and adds a touch that would require high level video editing software (AVID, After Affects) to attain. This does it without any other work. Overall I am very pleased with this camera and would definitely recommend it to anyone who is thinking of purchasing this model. Like I said, after reading reviews and customer feedback on Amazon as well as other sites that tested these cameras, I completely changed my initial impressions of what I thought I was looking for. If I were you I would make sure to go out and test out cameras you have in your Top 3 after reading all the great information found on this site. It really helps you make a confident decision in your purchase, such as the one I made. I had read before that Canon made excellent digital cameras, some of the best available, and can definitely back that up with my experience in just one day of use. I cant wait to use this camera more often and really get to know the many features it has to offer. I made sure to upload some pictures I just took today for others to see, hope this review has helped in some way. The only things I would seek to improve on this camera would be the addition of a wide angle lens and better construction of the tiny little door that covers the USB connection and AV cable connetion. It seems a little brittle and I would be very careful when opening and shutting it. Im sure it will be fine with proper caution, but if you were to open it fast or tug on it hardly, it could possibly rip and detach. Only gripe I see to express, but nothing too major.

First of all, I've owned several Canon PowerShots, way back to the S10 when memory cards were like $50 for 32 megs. Except for one, the SD450, the image quality has been excellent on all of them. Canon's are known for their image quality and this one holds true to that. The downside to all the PowerShots prior to this one has been how awfully slow they were in taking shots, especially in low light or at night. The delay from the time you push the button to the camera actually snapping the shot could be excruciatingly slow and infuriating. I absolutely loved my S400 in every way except for how freaking slow it was in snapping shots. I couldn't tell you how many shots I have of my dog's butt/tail because I didn't properly point the camera 10 feet in front of her and take the shot just right to account for that horrible delay. Finally, a Canon PowerShot that is quick! There are some shots that aren't quite lightning fast in lower light, but this is expected and the performance is FAR better than any other Canon I've owned. The SD450 had decent performance, but the picture quality was subpar. Another problem I've always had is poor battery life. This one can take about 200 shots before needing to be recharged. Compared to my last camera (the SD450), that's about 3 times as many shots. So the battery life is much improved. On a side note, another problem I've had which most ppl would probably not notice is a few dead pixels showing up over time. Canon seems to have fixed that in the last couple generation of PowerShots and it isn't an issue with this one. I like the fact that it has no viewfinder, who uses that thing anyway? The screen is huge but the resolution is not any better than my old S400 with a tiny 1.8" screen so all shots look kind of fuzzy. I very rarely have a shot out of focus with this camera so I don't worry about it. Besides, regardless of screen size or resolution it is going to be really hard to tell if a shot is a little bit out of focus and you'd have to zoom in to tell anyway. All in all, this is a great camera and the best PowerShot I've owned to date. I'm extremely happy with in and plan to keep it for a long time.

The Canon PowerShot SD630 is a small yet fierce compact point-and-shoot camera. This little 6-megapixel camera managed to bundle performance and snappy photos into a package you can easily carry in your shirt or pants pocket. I recently upgraded from the Canon SD450, and I am so glad that I got the SD630 (rather than the SD600). THE SD630 is almost identical to its little brother, the PowerShot SD600. The SD630 incorporates the same sensor, lens, and internal components. The only advantage over the less expensive SD600 is its 3-inch LCD screen, but had to lose the viewfinder in the process (which I never used anyway). The first thing that jumped out and caught my attention is the (relatively) HUGE 3" LCD screen. It provides plenty of room to frame your shot but not so much room to operate the camera. Granted, the pixel count on this screen is the same as the 2.5" screen on the SD600, I still like the larger view. The buttons on the back include a standard four-way rocker control pad, menu, display, and a button for printing when the camera is hooked up to a PictBridge-compatible printer. If you have large hands, you'll probably find its control layout a little uncomfortable, and it doesn't have an optical viewfinder, but the SD630 is still a great compact camera. Once you get the hang of it, the pad allows "easy" navigation around the menu system, and you can directly set options such as the self-timer, continuous shooting, macro, flash, and ISO sensitivity. The top edge of the camera holds the shutter release, the zoom rocker, the power button, and a slider for switching between photo, movie, and playback modes. The zoom rocker is a tabbed ring around the shutter release similar to the SD600, facing the front edge of the camera. Some users have mentioned that it is uncomfortable for large fingers and extremely awkward to operate with one hand, especially when zooming out. I have large/x-large hands, and I find no problems using the controllers. The Canon PowerShot SD630 has a decent amount of features that give its tiny form a nice amount of flexibility. Canon couples a 6-megapixel CCD with up to 3x optical zoom (35mm-to-105mm equivalent) lens. The lens has a pretty narrow maximum aperture of f/2.8 to f/4.9, with a shutter-speed range of 1/1,500 second to 15 seconds, average numbers for models in this space. The camera has automatic, program, and manual exposure modes with a range of plus or minus 2EV in 1/3EV steps, which is also on a par with the competition. Its sensitivity range goes as high as ISO 800; that's not quite as much as Fujifilm's and Sony's latest offerings, but it will still give you more low-light flexibility than most cameras of its size. I won't go into the details of the measurements, but I have to mention that it is less than an inch thick with its lens tucked in (great to carry around). It is easier to carry around than the SD450, or my ancient S200 (yes, the CompactFlash version!). I liked that the right side of the body is somewhat shaped/curved, because it lets the user hold the camera comfortably in your right hand. In addition to standard automatic and manual exposure modes, the SD630 offers a handful of scene modes. One will also find options for photographing beaches, plants, snowy days, and fireworks (not available on the SD450). It even has an underwater mode to use in conjunction with the optional underwater housing (for extra $$). Color Accent and Color Swap modes can filter and change colors in the camera, producing some neat artistic effects. And, the camera has an awesome 30fps VGA movie capture mode, which can be used in conjuction with the Color Accent modes and other features. I've shot a 45 minute movie of my 4-month old daughter (I have a 2Gb SD card) with no hiccups, and I think I could have gone longer. The SD630 takes a little over a second from power-on to the first shot, and takes about 2 seconds between shots, which increases marginally with flash. I haven't tried the burst mode yet, but it is supposed to shoot at 2.1fps with no buffer constraint on the number of shots. So far, the photos I have taken with the SD630 were quite pleasing, looked crisp and clear, and nice color reproduction (at least with my poor eyes) at the lower ISO range. However, images become noisy at ISO 400 and ISO 800 (as expected), but still usable. I will be doing a field test against my Digital SLR (Nikon D100), results pending. Also, I have not used the bundled software, which is supposed to be very good. Conclusion: I am happy with my purchase of the Canon PowerShot SD630. It is an extremely solid ultra compact, with performance and photo quality that more than make up for its very few design flaws. It's a surprisingly good shooter, and its feature set makes it quite flexible for a camera of its size. It is a more expensive version of the PowerShot SD600 ($50-100 more), with a larger screen and no optical viewfinder. Personally, I don't use the viewfinder, so I am willing to give it up for the larger LCD.

This is my first digital camera, and I made my final decision to spend more money and buy a better camera based on all of the wonderful reviews. True, the large screen is wonderful, and I love the compact size. Close-up pictures (like single flowers) turned out beautifully. Other photos were average. The big problem is taking pictures outside in sunlight. On a bright day, the screen is nothing more than a mirror; I was simply looking into my face no matter how I turned. So....to get a picture we had to "guess and shoot." Then we would look at the screen in shade to see what we got. It was a big guessing game. We were on a trip, so were asked by several others to take pictures of them on their cameras. That is how I found out how wonderful an optical lens would be. This camera is useless in sunlight.

We purchased this camera to upgrade from a Canon SD410. Canon cameras are excellent - we owned the SD410 for a few years and took wonderful photos with it. The SD630 greatly improves on what is already a great line of point of shoot cameras. It is pretty amazing how many features they can pack into these tiny cameras. Some highlights: *The first thing you'll notice is the beautiful 3" LCD. It absolutely great to see the images right on your camera - and @ 3", you notice a lot more details than you do on smaller screens. In playback mode, there are some neat slideshow settings you can use to check out your photos. *The other huge upgrade on this camera is the ISO 800 shutter speed. This very fast shutter speed gives you the ability to take awesome indoor photos without the flash. One benefit of no flash = no red eye. Red eye is always going to be an issue shooting indoor photos and using the flash - this camera helps to alleviate the red eye problem as it gives you the speed you need to shoot without the flash. The fast shutter speed also allows for crisp images even when holding the camera by hand (no tripod). I shot a few test images (auto ISO setting) in a dimly lit room w/out the flash and the images came out awesome. *This camera is so easy to operate as a point and shoot (auto mode will work for the majority of shots), but for the serious (or quasi serious) photographer, this camera has additional shooting modes (e.g. portrait, kids & pets, nighttime, indoor, landscape, digital macro, etc...) and manual settings galore. Even includes long shutter mode, self timer, and movie mode - that is also greatly improved from SD410. We prefer this very compact camera as it is easy to carry anywhere - especially hikes, day trips, etc... We took our old SD410 to Belize, Yosemite, Niagara, etc... and have beautiful photos to show off. Definitely small enough for a purse or pants pocket. This camera only has 3x optical zoom - so if you want more zoom (shooting sports, etc...), consider a larger camera (like Canon's S2). We keep the digital zoom turned off as it reduces your image quality. You will definitely need a larger memory card. Get @ least 512 MB and more (like 1 - 2 GB) if you plan to use your camera for movies. No case included - we opted not to buy the accessory pack, because the camera case looked bulky. We prefer a small case that fits snug on the camera so we can 'stay light'. We found some great cases that did the trick by going to Wolf Camera. Take your camera with you when you go so you can try the cases out to see how they work for your needs. Canon makes a phenomenal product and this one is no exception. Highly recommended.

With all the praise this screen and this camera have gotten, I'd like to point out something that has been missing from any review I've seen. While the screen is larger than it's 2.5" counterparts, the pixel count is not (173,000 pixels for both). Since the pixel density is even worse than my old 2" screen camera, I cannot tell if my pictures are in focus in my camera! I thought I had a defective unit that couldn't take sharp pictures until I uploaded them to my computer. On the computer the pictures were excellent, but you really can't tell on this low resolution LCD on the camera. I like the camera, but if I were to do it again, I'd focus more on pixel density than screen size. Otherwise you have no idea if you got a sharp picture until you upload it to the computer.

I am one of those people that obsessively researches reviews and ratings on an electronic item before I buy it - So I spent a very long time trying to decide between the Casio Exilims, Canon Sd630, 600 and 700. I finally decided on the SD630 because I loved the styling and design of it. Although it lacks a view finder, the huge screen more than makes up for it. I wanted a bigger zoom but was having trouble finding a camera with more than 3x for less than $300. I finally bought the Canon Sd630 and I LOVE IT! I brought it on a cruise and the image clarity is beautiful, the design is stunning and the battery life is wonderful. I used this camera off and on for 3 days and the battery is still not eaten up. People will ooh and aah when they see you pull this baby out! I got a case logic case at target for 3.99 and I loved how tiny this camera is. The menu settings are super easy to use, and you get up to an 800 ISO! that is insane for such a teeny camera, and all of the extra settings like fireworks, beach, night, kids, pets, insects, are all very cool. I used to have a Sony DSC something and the SD630 is by far a million times better. Color settings are awesome such as color swap, and it really is cool how you can tilt the camera from side or bottom and it flips the picture to accomodate the screen. My only negative about this camera is pictures taken with the digital zoom are grainy (but that happens with any camera). If you want a sleek little camera with alot of manual control, I recommend this one. You will not be disappointed - after seeing this camera, my mother (who is a professional wedding photographer and uses the big league Canon Elans and 5D/20D) decided she wanted one for her birthday!! GO FOR IT!! Updated after 3 weeks of owning it: WOW! I am super-impressed with the battery life. I went to San Francisco for a weekend and forgot my charger - I used the camera constantly for 3 days straight and the battery was fine until the morning I left to go home (4th day) and I was looking thru all my pics for the millionth time!) I emphasize again - great camera. go for it!

I bought this camera due to reviews here and on CNET. I love this thing, got a battery from ebay for $1 plus shipping. Search for 'sd630 battery' it works great. I also got a screen guard (invisble shield) from shieldzone for $15. My last camera was a 2MP Sony which fell in ocean with me. The camera is very small and the LCD is so beautiful. Its a crowd pleaser everytime i pull it out. People see the screen and are just amazed. speaking of size, it fits in pocket and buttons may be kind of weird for big fingers. The menus are easy for me, havent took many night shots just point and shoots. The fireworks mode works well though. Like others said, make sure you have the extra batter cause the low-batt signal just appears with no warning. The one feature i didnt think i'd use but i love now is the video mode with sound. When you play back through camera you cant hear anything but one you download it it sounds fine, no hissing or low noise. The video looks very good, i took some video on a jamaican safari and it was great. I would suggest a 1gb or 2gb card though. My 1gb gives maybe 5min of high quality video, which is still enough for those short unexpected things. But even the medium level still looks great and gives much more time. Camera is very easy to use, keep the manual though cause there are a lot of features that you may forget or overlook. Dont be tricked into those 8 or 10MP cameras cause if you're not printing posters then you're wasting money. Spend that money on a high-end 5 or 6MP camera that has more features than those upper pixels, remember the more pixels the bigger card you have to buy and the more hard drive space you take up.