Last of the optical viewfinders

Author's Rating:

Pros: Very compact, high build quality, takes good auto-snapshot photos

Cons: Oh dear, the noise level

The Bottom Line: 
Continues the traditional strengths of the Canon Elph line at the entry level

Author's Review
Ok, so the Canon SD1200is model is a year old now, and already replaced by the SD1300 at the low end of the SD model line as part of Canon's annual product refresh. But there are still plenty of them available, and this is a good opportunity to find one on clearance sale, especially if you want what may be the last Canon Elph model with an optical viewfinder. I gave away my previous SD1100, so I thought I'd pick up the SD1200is when I spotted a nice blue one on sale with a leather case included.

My short summary of the SD1200is, from the viewpoint of an owner of several previous Canon SD models:

Pro:
-         Compact size and slender shape that fits easily in a pocket
-         Good build quality with light metal case
-         Quick shooting response, smooth and reliable controls
-         Good auto snapshot quality, usually has good focus, exposure and color
-         Effective optical image stabilization helps handheld shots in the shutter speed range between 1/15 and 1/8 sec.
-         Faster Digic 4 processor used to good effect to auto-select scene modes
-         Continued refinement of the traditional Canon controls and user interface without unnecessarily changing anything
-         Clear, bright and sharp LCD screen
-         Optical viewfinder

Con
-         High noise levels, disappointing at ISO 800 and over
-         Blurry image corners at wide angle end of zoom range
-         Intelligent Auto mode sometimes "hunts" a bit for the right setting, and may get it wrong
-         Lost a few nice features from earlier SD models

Physical design:

The SD1200is continues the traditional design strengths of the Canon Elph line: compact size, slender shape, well-placed controls and high build quality. It has the typical 3:1 zoom lens, probably the same one used on the previous low-end SD models, no extra-wide or extra-telephoto range here. There's an excellent 2.5 inch LCD screen, which looks like the same one they used on the SD1100. Like many previous SD models it also has a zoom-linked optical viewfinder, a rare feature on compact cameras these days, especially one as compact as this. This is a welcome boon in difficult lighting conditions and when your battery power is running low. Most compact cameras don't bother including the optical viewfinder any more because it adds to the expense and complexity of the camera. Too bad Canon seems to have finally dropped it this year.

The camera fits comfortably in the hands in spite of the small size, and it's easy to grip the camera securely and use the controls without blocking the lens or flash inadvertently. The buttons on the SD1200 are flush with the case (like the SD1100), making them a bit harder to press than earlier models where they stood out a little. I'm not sure why Canon did this - the raised rounded buttons on the earlier models worked just fine.  The controls are all responsive and reliable, and typically give audio feedback. The zoom control for the 3:1 optical zoom lens is on a ring around the shutter button. The zoom operates smoothly and fairly quickly.

User interface and features:

If you've ever used previous Canon cameras, the user interface will be very familiar to you, including the placement of controls and the layout of the menus. This is a good thing. No user interface is perfect or suits everyone, but by sticking to one interface and constantly refining it, Canon has arguably developed the most polished user interface of any digital camera brand. I don't exclusively use Canon cameras, but I can pick up any Canon camera and find most of the functions easily in the familiar place. You have to learn the split of functions between the Function button (middle of the ring) and the Menu button, but they are fairly logically divided between shooting functions and non-shooting functions. Canon has kept the 3-position slider for Auto-Manual-Movie modes on this model, which I also like. As with all the Elph models, the Manual functions are limited to things like selecting white balance and ISO sensitivity, or adjusting exposure compensation - no detailed control of shutter speed, aperture or focus here. In fact there isn't any real aperture adjustment in the Elph models - just a one-stage neutral density filter for extra-bright lighting conditions (that's why you only see either f2.8 or f8 and their zoomed variations in the EXIF data, and why the depth of field doesn't appear to change).

There are plenty of useful pre-programmed Scene modes on the Manual menu, although I wish Canon would explain them better in the manual. One new thing this year is that the intelligent auto function on the camera tries to guess the best scene mode and flashes the scene icon on the screen interactively when it selects one. For example if you hold the camera close to a small subject, it will auto-select Macro mode after a few seconds. If a face fills much of the frame, it will auto-select Portrait mode. Usually it's pretty good, but occasionally it hunts for the correct Scene mode and keeps changing its mind even when the camera is held steady on the scene. It also tends to hunt a bit on focus and white balance, which you can see while watching the LCD screen in shooting mode.

The playback function displays and moves between photos quickly. It offers plenty of optional information, including a histogram and flashing blown-out highlights on the image, useful for those with a little photographic knowledge. New to this model is a useful playback display mode that shows the full photo together with a zoomed-in focus insert to show you how sharp the main subject is.

There's a standard 640 x 480 x 30fps video mode with sound, which will record up to 4 Gbytes of MJPEG-format video to an avi file (about 40 minutes) if your SD card has enough space. The SD1200 accepts both SD and SDHC memory cards, like all the recent Canon models, so there's plenty of room for video on a relatively inexpensive memory card. There's no need for any special high-speed SD card, the regular ones are fast enough. As usual you are restricted to using only digital zoom while shooting video to avoid audio noise pickup from the optical zoom.

Unfortunately this model has lost a few of the nice features that earlier entry-level Canon SD models had. Most missed is the Panorama Stitch Assist mode that helps you line up sequential photos precisely to make a panorama. The slow-motion and time lapse video modes are gone. All of the audio recording functions are gone - you can no longer make audio-only recordings or add voice annotations to images. The My Camera settings menu that allowed you to customize the startup photo and sounds of the camera is gone - there's no customization at all on this model. And the programmable Print function button is gone - not that it was really needed for printing, but it was useful because you could customize it to perform other functions. There are minor improvements elsewhere, but more has been lost than has been gained. Not sure whether Canon is trying to simplify functionality, distinguish high-end models from entry-level, or they just haven't gotten around to porting some software functions to the latest operating system (they changed the internal operating system used by the SD models from VxWorks to DryOS recently). For those interested in experimenting with optional firmware, a version of CHDK for the SD1200 is under development.

Image quality:

Canon cameras are among the best at automatically selecting the focus, exposure and color balance, and the SD1200 is no exception. Sometimes it's a bit of a subjective choice, but usually when I compare side-by-side shots with my other cameras, I would pick the Canon shot as the best looking. It usually looks more like the actual scene to my eye. In daylight the color tends to be a little bit on the warm side and the image is "punched up" a bit with high contrast, but not to an unpleasant level. Flash exposure is good within the limited range of the small flash.

As with most compact zooms, the image corners are a bit soft at the wide angle end of the zoom range. This is becoming increasingly noticeable with every increase in megapixel count. Let's face it, this is at best a 6 megapixel camera within the optical resolution limits of this lens. Increasing the pixel count to 8, 10, 12, and now 14 megapixels on the latest SD models is just plain silly. You end up with bigger image files, higher noise levels, and reduced dynamic range, and it's all to no purpose since the lens doesn't deliver that much resolution.

And speaking of those noise levels, oh dear - anything over ISO 400 is very disappointing on this camera. The shadow areas of images are already a grainy mess at ISO 800, and the image details are smeared out by noise reduction processing, although at least Canon's noise reduction kicks in smoothly without adding any gross artifacts. There's little point in going up to ISO 1600 or the maximum ISO 3200. It's not a lot worse than the 8 megapixel SD1100, but it is noticeably worse than the 3 megapixel SD300 (all of them using the same physical sensor size of 1:2.3"). It doesn't hold a candle to the low noise levels on my Fuji F20, not surprisingly considering that the Canon has a 35 megapixel/cm2 density compared to 14 megapixel/cm2 for the Fuji. Please stop the megapixel madness, Canon! Either put a bigger CCD sensor in these cameras, change to a different sensor technology, or go back to a more realistic and usable 6 megapixels.

So the bottom line on image quality is that it's ok in good light, but you must stick to ISO 400 or below, and use the flash if the light level is any lower. Unfortunately the Auto mode prioritizes fast shutter speed over low image noise, and sometimes selects ISO 800 or higher when when I would have preferred ISO 400 and a slower shutter speed. You can select ISO 400 manually, but it would have been nice if Canon had included an "Auto 400" mode to limit the maximum ISO level (a feature my Fuji F20 has).

Battery and accessories:

This camera uses the NB6L lithium-ion battery. Battery life is similar to previous Canon SD models - adequate for a full day of active shooting, but better take the charger if you're going for a weekend. As with previous models, the battery is recharged outside the camera by a separate charger. This can be useful if you have more than one battery, so you can use one while charging the other. The original Canon batteries are ridiculously expensive, but there are plenty of cheap clone batteries available for Canon cameras (although in my experience they have nowhere near the life span of the original batteries, so you get what you pay for).

The camera has a standard mini-USB port on the side under a flimsy plastic door, which is a bit hard to open and gives the impression that it might break off easily, but it never has on my earlier SD models. The USB port serves double duty as the AV port for connecting video and audio output with the included AV cable. Unfortunately the camera cannot be powered or charge the battery through the USB port.

Canon finally stopped including the tiny 32 Mbyte "starter" SD card with their cameras with this model  There's no SD card included, so you won't be able to use the camera at all until you buy one.

There's no camera case included with the standard SD1200 package, but the package I bought came with a nice Canon leather belt-clip case.

Aside from that, there's a lanyard, a printed Getting Started manual, and a CD with the usual Canon software for image browsing and printing on a PC.

Bottom line:

I like this camera a lot. Except for the noisy images in low light, it generally does a fine job in a wide variety of lighting conditions. It's small and light, quick in operation, and easy to use thanks to Canon's excellent Auto control and consistent user interface.