Last Updated
August 19, 2010

Editor's Rating

• Compact size
• Very good image quality
• Priority modes
• Large LCD display

• Limited physical controls
• Horrible low-light video quality
• No "Mode" physical control

The Canon PowerShot SD4000 IS is a flashy little compact camera that offers 10-megapixel shooting resolution, a 3.8x optical zoom and excellent image stabilization. As a result, image quality with the SD4000 IS is above average and definitely a top-contender.

The SD4000 IS has a glossy finish that comes in three different colors: black, silver, and red. It has a compact size, so it's pretty easy to hold in your hand and shoot comfortably, but it can feel a little slick if your hands are damp. The back of the device only has two buttons and a navigation/function scroll wheel. There's also a huge 3-inch LCD screen on the back, which shows images in good quality and even in direct sunlight it works fairly well. The top of the camera has a slider switch for changing between modes (movie, program, auto), an on/off button, and the zoom toggle. Because of the lack of physical controls, use of the camera's software menus is quite prolific. Even for changing between camera mode and movie mode requires use of the menus. There's no manual controls either for aperture-& shutter-priority modes as well. The menus, however, do flow nicely and are pretty simple to navigate and figure out without much stress.

On the side of the camera, there is an HDMI connection and AV-out ports hidden by a rubber cover.

Some of the specifications include a 10-megapixel image sensor, 3.8x optical zoom, 4x digital zoom, image stabilization, and a f2.0 aperture. The image stabilization, as we said in the introduction to this review, is definitely one of the best we've seen on a compact, point-and-shoot camera. The SD4000 IS can also shoot HD video at 720p and 30 frames per second.

The Canon PowerShot SD4000 IS includes many different scene modes, including the usual ones to more artistic ones, like a fish-eye lens and a high-speed burst mode that takes many successive shots at a lower resolution for fast exposure.

Image quality with this model is very good. Color accuracy and sharpness were very apparent with very little distortion detected. In lower-light settings, sharpness did decrease slightly, but not too much. Video quality (with sound) in brightly-lit conditions is excellent, but low-light conditions produced horrible video quality that quite frankly, isn't even watchable.

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