The Best Compact Digital Camera You’ll Ever Own

Canon PowerShot SD870ISAnyone looking for a compact digital camera, probably has a lot of things on their mind. Especially, if it’s been a while since you last bought a camera. Particularly a digital camera. These little babies change so much lately, it’s hard to keep score. The fact is though, that digital cameras are getting to the point that it’s difficult to buy a bad one.

That’s great for consumers, as the manufacturers battle it out with more features, and lower prices every day. While the advent of digital photography sparked a resurgence of R&D for the manufacturers, it initially bewildered many consumers. Thankfully, those days are gone, and things have gotten easier for the gadget challenged masses.

If I were looking for a compact digital these days though, it would be a pretty easy choice. The Canon SD PowerShot SD870IS pictured here, is a pretty decent compact camera. It’s got all the basics anyone would want in a camera, plus a whole lot more bells and whistles, then most will use. Still, it’s nice to know they’re there just in case you want to use them.

8 megapixels is plenty enough resolution for the average photographer. Heck, I’ve still got an old Canon compact that’s only 4 megapixels, and it’s only recently, that I’ve left the resolution setting to it’s highest. One of the problems in the past with hight resolution settings, was that it limited the number of pictures you could store on the card. The camera initially only came with a 32MB card (was supposed to be 16MB, but it was a demo camera, and all the store had left were 32MB cards), which only held about 30 pictures at the second highest resolution. I put a 512 MB card in it about a year ago, (paid like $10 for it) set the resolution to it’s max, and don’t even worry about filling up the card anymore.

The funny thing though is the SD870IS still only comes with a 32MB card. This is like 6 years since my old compact digital. In that time, digital camera technology has likely increased 20 fold, yet Canon only sees fit to double the card size? What’s up with that? Kind of annoying for sure, but my point being, if you buy an SD870, be sure to leave room in the budget for a bigger card. Especially, since this is an 8GB camera and your going to need more room for pictures from the get go. Especially if you shoot video with the camera. A bigger card (at least 2GB) is a must. Amazon usually has pretty good deals on memory cards.

At least Canon addressed one of my other pet peeves with the goodies delivered with this camera. So often camera manufacturers see fit to not include rechargeable batteries or rechargers with there cameras. It’s of course, the first thing the camera stores try to up sell you on as well. Well, in this case Canon has included lithium ion batteries and a recharger with the camera. Which is nice, especially for a camera in the $250 price range. At least that’s the price Amazon has on it these days. A lot of cameras in the under $300 price range don’t include a recharger.

In addition, you get the old tried and true Canon reliability and experience. They’ve been in the business for years, and if your in the market for the best compact digital camera available, you could do a lot worse then the SD870. It’s got a lot of other nice features, I haven’t really discussed yet. Like image stabilization, face recognition, and a 3.0 inch LCD screen. Some built in camera editing is included as well, like red eye removal.


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June 4, 2008 · Filed Under Digital Camera Buying Guide, Digital Cameras, Digital Photography, compact digital cameras, digital camera shopping

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