| Canon PowerShot SD940 IS |
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At 12.1-megapixels, the Canon PowerShot SD940 IS is a powerful digital camera with plenty of features and it comes in a small sized device. The shooting speed is also very quick and the price is not much either, so it will go easy on your budget as well. Other features include HD video capture and a HDMI port for content playback on an HDTV. The Canon PowerShot SD940 IS is a fairly small digital camera in size, measuring in at 3.5 x 0.8 x 2.2-inches (wdh) and weighs a measly 0.26 pounds. It makes it very comparable to the average cell phone or handheld PDA, which can pose a problem for users with larger hands and fingers. The navigation pad and buttons on the back are a little on the small side, especially the slider to switch between shooting and playback modes. To the left of the buttons on the back is the very vibrant 2.7-inch LCD screen that features 230,000 pixels, which is a lot higher than comparable cameras. The screen works well in both dark and direct sunlight shooting conditions, which is a must for a consumer digital camera. There was also no visible motion blur either.
The specs of the PowerShot SD940 IS from Canon is nothing to laugh at either. It offers 12.1-megapixels and 4x optical and digital zoom with a 28-112 mm lens with a focal length of 5-20 mm. The aperture range is f2.8/f5.9 and has a shutter speed of 1/1500 sec and can shoot around 0.8 frames per second. This wider aperture allows more light to be captured at a faster shutter speed. This lens is definitely a step up from previous PowerShot SD models and is well worth the upgrade if you have an older camera. The SD940 IS has several different shooting modes, as expected with any consumer camera. These modes include auto, manual, daylight, cloudy, fluorescent, and tungsten. The build-in flash also offers many different ISO speeds, from an auto setting to manual modes from 80 to 1600. There are also a few flash modes, such as auto, red-eye, slow sync, and fill-in. This model uses the popular SD memory card for storage and does support SDHC cards as well. Start up times were quite speedy, with only around 1.5 seconds from power on, focus, and first shot. Speeds between shots were average at around 2 seconds and shutter lag was fairly small. Overall the Canon PowerShot SD940 IS is a pretty speedy camera for its small size, powerful features and modest price. Images can be captured all the way from low quality to 4000x2248 in resolution, depending upon the desired quality and file size. However, image quality overall was either average or slightly mediocre. Worth noting were shots in bright sunlight where the pictures extremely bright and lost a decent amount of quality. Indoor images were better in quality with the auto flash ISO setting. Images are shot and saved using the JPEG file format. A very nice feature of this camera is the ability to shoot video in high-definition (720p) at 30 frames per second. Quality of the video was very good and the audio sounded very decent as well. Worth noting here is you cannot use the optical zoom while shooting video. Video is saved in the QuickTime file format. Another feature that makes the Canon PowerShot SD940 IS a camera to look at is the mini-HDMI port for connecting to a compatible HDTV for media playback in high-definition quality (The cable is included in the box). There is also a mini-USB port for connecting to a computer to transfer images and videos off the camera. The rechargeable Li-ion battery is rated at lasting a total of 220 images.
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