Canon PowerShot SD980 IS / Digital IXUS 200 IS

Opinion: We lost the ixus70 i new york and got this as a replacement.
It sucs.
Its bulky compared to the smaller 70/80/90
Image quality is very poor compared to the old ixus - also when you downsample to compare.
Contrast is bad.
Macro sucs even more.
In good light pictures are ok, but not more.

Dont get this camera!

Opinion: I'm a DSLR user and a fan of the Elph/SD series, having purchased or used several over the years (SD600, SD800IS, SD870IS). With the recent loss of my elph, I looked to the latest incarnation of the Elph by default. My options in the 28mm range were the SD960IS (about 8 months old), SD940IS (similar sensor, only 28mm wideangle), S90 (low-light ISO performance, 28mm, mega-features, $$$) and this (touchscreen, 24mm wideangle). After spotting a deal at Staples, I pulled the trigger for $330 CDN in late November 2009. I will briefly go over notables in point form:

FEATURES:
- the headline feature of the SD980is (ixus200) was the touchscreen, which I found to be semi-useful. The touch-focus feature didn't appeal to me, since I rarely ever stayed in one hand-position when using a P&S. However, I did like the touch-scrolling/zoom feature. Other reviews have panned the camera as 'unresponsive touch'; coming from an HTC Touch phone, I was used to the pressure required to navigate the images and appreciate the fact that I'm not accidentally pressing buttons on the screen in regular use. Coming from the SD800IS, I actually found the scrollwheel to be the larger UI feature: when reviewing my shots, I could either use the left/right buttons, left/right touch-gesture, or scroll the wheel to run between images quickly.
- When taking shots one-handed, my right thumb would accidentally hit the touchscreen and modify something during the shot. Extremely annoying: wish there was a firmware update to allow disabling touchscreen while shooting, playing back, or both.

BUILD:
- I feel it's a step down from the SD800 and SD870, which felt like tanks. This unit (along with the SD940is) seemed lighter without being as structurally rigid -- it adds to the pocketability.
- The touchscreen seemed nice and sturdy, but I'm hesitant to pass judgement until the screen sees more fingermarks. The plastic touchscreen is similar, perhaps slightly harder than those found in PDA's and recent touchscreen mobile phones. Like any surface like this, it will attract smudges.

PICTURES:
- Anecdotally, Image quality straight out of the box is 'OK', certainly not canon's best effort. I haven't done an shot-to-shot comparison between this an the previous generation sd870is cam, but it feels like the. Tried setting picture size to M1 instead full 12.1MP resolution, colours to less sharpening, vivid / contrast -- it still showed rather washed out indoor shots without flash.
- image stabilizer appears to have worsened since the SD800 and SD870: hand-held shots were slightly
- using iContrast feature improved shadows in my pictures, but at the expense of losing contrast (it added to the 'washed','noisy' image)
- Using flash improved picture quality, but that's true of any pocket-cam (where the aperture and lens performance matters less)
- I am aware of the other reviews/advice on the net about not using AUTO, hardcoding to low ISO, and setting Custom Colors to no-sharpening. My point is that I often WANT to have sharp pictures in low-hight, so high-ISO is major for me.
- Macro-mode 5cm quality was fair, but was again impeded by the image stabilizer. Camera shake was an issue for me, compared to the handheld shots I was able to attain using the SD800is.
- 24mm wideangle is noticeably wider than other 28mm cameras on the market, with slight distortion (As other reviews have stated, the camera is doing lens perspective correction during JPEG processing). This was the single reason I did not step up to the Canon S90, and I was glad I got the chance to see the difference. For those considering between LX3 (24mm) and Canon S90 (28mm widest), I would argue that 24mm focal length is a real advantage here.

MOVIE MODE:
- Movies are HDMI, and come out nicely due to the stabilizer. I was happily surprised with the video and sound quality, perfectly usable for low-light. Here, the 24mm lends itself very well to hand-held use, helping to contain the shaking that usually occurs when you're walking or panning with the camera.

I ended up returning the unit for an S90. The only saving grace was the 24mm wideangle (unique for this combo of features/price), HDMI movies, and let's face it, price. The unit can now be found for ~$330 CAD around christmas, well over a hundred dollars cheaper than the S90. For that amount, it is a relatively capable pocket camera, but I feel you are paying for the touchscreen R&D rather than the camera. I would likely *not* have purchased this at the original $399 Cdn retail price.

PRO's:
- 24mm wideangle lens (to me, it's biggest selling feature, not the touchscreen)
- HDMI wideangle movies (vs the S90)
- User interface

CON's:
- brutal image stabilizer (a noticeable difference from the previous generation)
- poor low-ISO indoor performance

Opinion: This is a slick little camera. The touch screen is cool, especially the touch-focus feature, which will probably become standard on all future cameras.

I bought this camera for the Mrs. I also plan to use it myself in some specific situations -- bicycling or car repairs. I chose this camera for its 24mm-equivalent wide angle lens. As an SLR shooter, I love wide angles, and 24mm is not available on any other P&S camera. I applaud Canon for pushing the envelope in this regard.

I see a lot of complaints about the image quality, but I think that's because people didn't have the right expectations. Most people came from cameras with less than 10 mega pixels, and they expect a 12 mp camera to give them the same pixel quality as before. This is not realistic.

I think there is no point in going over 8 mega pixels on a small P&S camera. The image quality bottleneck will be in the lens, not in the pixel count. The overwhelming majority of people don't need more than 6 mega pixels anyway. The image quality problem I see is too much sharpening, which is obvious from the halos. This is probably necessary because of the 12 mega pixels. At reduced resolution of 8mp or 5mp, the sharpening effect is much less obvious.

For those people who need a lot of mega pixels, forget about the P&S and move on to SLRs. I normally shoot with a 5D Mark II, and only the best lens can satisfy the 21 mp.

I went out today and shot some of the same scenes with both the SD980IS and 5D Mark II (with the 24-70mm f/2.8L lens). I have to say the SD980IS came out pretty well (other than the over-sharpening issue), even at 24mm wide angle, especially considering the SD980IS is only $300 weighing 5 oz (while the 5Dm2 setup is about $4000 weighing 4 lbs).

Opinion: I use a Nikon D300 for 'professional' shoots and mostly take my Canon Powershot A710is with me for the holidays and in case I just want quick snapshots.

I was looking for a camera that had the same picture quality as A710is, but only with a wider lens (around 24mm instead of 35mm) to accompany the D300. In other words, the new compact should replace some work of the D300...

Little I knew, bought this PowerShot SD980 IS (Ixus 200is in Europe) mostly for it's 24mm. I wanted a canon anyway for its colours and high detailed shots compared to other manufacturers. That is exactly the reason I don't like Sony's, Panasonics, Olympus, Samsung, Casio etc.: the pictures are 'smeared'. A field of grass doesn't look like that, but more like a lawn from a golf gourse. With canon you could at least distinguish the individual blades of grass. I thought.

Information on the internet told me that this camera would also have a 'super-fine' mode. The A710 also had this (for that camera lowest) level of compression, so this camera had to be good. 'Now I will have a 24mm on a compact with the same, or likely better, picture quality' was my thought...
I returned the camera 3 days later, but only because I couldn't return it the same day. I took 6 or 7 pictures with it, compared it to the results of the A710 and was totally disappointed. This product would be fairly good if the level of compression was lower. The 12MP also looks like overkill.

Construction: pretty much OK I quess, feels solid/sturdy.

Features: there are settings, but again, super-fine is missing for me. If you don't care about that, rating can be a 4 I quess. I din't care much about the touch screen, which also was disappointing. As mentioned in another opinion, you need fairly much pressure; it's not like the sensitivity of an Iphone. I'm still not convinced of touch screens. Not on phones, computers and camera's that is.

Image quality: for me it's poor, but maybe it's because I'm used to D300 and A710 results. If you don't have comparison I think the quality can be somewhat satisfying.
But details are just lost at 'fine' setting. Super-fine would be great on this camera!

Ease of use: this camera is (at least for me) small, very small. Therefor buttons also had to be small I quess.
I don't like it. The power button and selection button(?) for choosing video, program picture mode and auto picture mode is annoying, but I'm used to the mode dial of the A710. Quick access to all your functions! With the Ixus 200 you have to browse a slow menu to get to the panaroma-stich function for example.

Value for money: In the segment of this camera the price was average.

Opinion: this is my 3rd canon camera. S70, SD870IS are the first two camreas with excellent picture quality with superfine mode. dpreview website misguided me for the quality. they have posted quality level as super fine, fine and normal. i bought it and went overseas for vacation. i could not find the superfine mode. i had to take pictures in fine mode. when zooming in the review mode or in the computer, the pixels breaks and the photo's are fuzzy. i hope canon makes the superfine mode again or upgrades the software for all cameras which do not have the superfine mode. reviews have dropped from 4.5 to 3.0 ,,,selling is going to drop compared to sony,panasonic,nikon etc.

Opinion: + Innovative Face detection with touch screen very practical, especially the feature to allow Face detection with self-timer makes group photo shots fun..
+Touch to focus useful and fast..
+Plenty of features take a long while for beginner to out-grow
+Some advanced features like AFL, AEL, FEL are available.
+Photo stitch along wth AEL, AFL makes taking panorama shots easy..
+Lots of white balance choice, including custom
+Availability of color choices including custom tinit.
+Large 3 inch touch pad
+Large choice of auto shootng modes for beginners
+i-Contrast can be useful, and available as in-camera editing as well..
+Menu navigation intuitive, especially when used with touch pad
+Stylish and attractive design
+wide angle and f/2.8 a plus

Opinion: Excellent camera.
Compact, heavy construction, Canon quality.
Night shots produce a nice black.
Very good video quality.
Flash is good for close range snapshots.
I love the "half flash" settings, meaning it is possible to flash in the night and to keep the background visible. That makes for nice pix.
The wide angle is great.

Opinion: Great all-around P&S. Love the wide lens. Overall, the images are a bit painterly for
me (that is, low grain, but at sacrifice of detail). Tiny size is both great AND it's
downside. The screen is so big it is difficult to handhold with one hand without
engaging the touch screen menu GRRRR! Found the menu operations very
counterintuitive at first, but now like them. LOVE the command wheel; very
quick to use once mastered. The switch from video-camera-auto is tiny; too small.
From one command to the next, that button is only about a 2mm throw, making it
maddening to get it to the middle camera setting (the left triangular button on the
top).

Video is decent with very clean with exceptional audio for such a tiny camera. Since
the motion seems to be progressive (guessing) the still frames are very sharp… but
motion is a bit clippy and less than smooth with poor camera technique. Gets pretty
noisy in the shadows in low light. Good AWB.

Love the wide angle video capacity. Note that the flare you get on the LCD when
composing stills is actually IN the video you get… so watch for windows in
background during video as they can cause vertical streaking.

Overall, it's a keeper (for my wife). I have the s90 on order, as I want awesome low-
light capacity; review on that once I get it. Back to the 980… This is fair to good
for what it is. This is very useable at ISO 800. It's nowhere near the LX3 for image
quality; but then again, this is nearly $200USD less and can fit easily in pants
pocket and zooms twice as far. For pixel peeping, sure it's not an EOS 1Ds
XXX, but then again, it's not an EOS. Grain is smoother and less noise than my
Ricoh GX 100; but I'll take a bit more grain of the Ricoh and less in-camera
processing. That's because I take EVERYTHING into Photoshop so don't care. This
IS about twice the sensitivity of the Ricoh, though. That is, Ricoh grain at 400 is
more like the 980 at ISO 800. The 1600 … well, only if it's the ONLY way to get a
picture at all. Lots of loss of detail and chunky.