Canon Powershot SD200 Review

I'm not a brilliant photographer. I might be considered a good amateur photographer, but the reason I take pictures is to document life as I go - over time I have found that words aren't enough. [t:Digital photography] has allowed me to take lots of bad shots without paying someone to process them, and for that I am grateful; yet my first digital camera (A Canon Powershot A40) was a pain to carry around. I'm a person who likes portable, who doesn't like large things attached to my belt and large things to fly around with. I was looking for a camera.

All my friends knoweldgeable in photography were suggesting all sorts of cool cameras that were feature rich, but when I got to the store I shopped with 2 things in mind: Physical Size, memory storage, and how many gigapixels it had. So when I was in Canada, for the MobileActive convergence, I hit a Canadian store and picked up a Canon Powershot SD200 3.2MP Digital Elph Camera with 3x Optical Zoom at a Canadian electronics store. I picked up a decent case with the camera, a 256 megabyte card, and a discount once the Jamaican lady found out I was from Trinidad.

I've been using it for about 3 months now - enough for me to write a solid review, I think, from the perspective of an amateur photographer.

The Pros

The Powershot SD200 is small, and easy to carry. You can carry it in a shirt pocket, or in a small holder on your belt. It's intuitive - from the start it's 'point and click'. These two characteristics made the camera a staple whenever I'm moving around - be it in the yard, travelling, or just walking down the street.

It powers up fast. With practice, you can draw the camera from a holster and shoot within 3 seconds. The big digital LCD display on the back keeps you dead on, and is very good for zooming in for shots - giving you a fairly good idea of whether you're focused or not by the view, or by the little green box once the camera finds the depth and focus.

The digital zoom is acceptable, and the video aspects of the camera are at the least interesting and perhaps even useful to some. I haven't found a use for it yet. The Macro setting is outstanding, allowing quite a bit of detail But for a lightweight point and shoot camera, I'm exceptionally happy with this camera.

The Cons

As I said, I'm an amateur photographer - and after a few months with it, I've found the limitations that bug me a bit. I can't take a decent, detailed shot of the moon with it. Professional photographers probably already knew that and are laughing at me, but I don't aspire to professional photography. Aside from the moon, there are times that I would really like more than a 3x zoom - like when shooting pictures of birds that won't allow me much closer without either flying away or pecking my eyeballs out.

The digital zoom compensates nicely, but I've found optical zoom is much more important for detailed shots. A way to improve this camera for me would be to allow more of an optical zoom. The trick is to get it into the same size. I'm sure that there are engineers working on that, somewhere.

Conclusion

This isn't a camera for the professional photographer, which in my mind is someone who is willing to lob around a lot of equipment for the perfect shots. If you're an amateur photographer who wants a camera that's powerful and easy to use, the Canon Powershot SD200 is a great camera for quick shots and carrying around. It fits easily into a pocket, and despite my abuses (dropping it, getting it damp, etc.) has tolerated the owner very well - in fact, it seems to have ignored the abuses. Because of it, I have taken a lot of pictures, and continue to - documenting things for my blog, or even capturing images of text so that I can refer to them later. All in all, this amateur is happy enough with this camera to recommend it. If I were to buy one now, though, I would also look into the Canon PowerShot S500 5MP Digital Elph with 3x Optical Zoom - more megapixels, comparable price, and only 0.8 pounds heavier. While I can't recommend it, it certainly does look attractive because of the Powershot SD200 I have.