12.1 Mega pixels for pointing and shooting

Author's Rating:

Pros: Resolution, Image quality. Easy to use. Many features. Large display, great design.

Cons: Quality in poor light (noise). No manual focus. Only JPEG file format.

The Bottom Line: 
If you want great detail and functionality in a slick, solid design you will not be disappointed.

Author's Review
Canon's new Powershot SD950 IS Digital Camera has a whopping 12.1 Mega pixels in a compact Titanium casing.

Battery
The battery is of lightweight, long lasting, Li-Ion type. This I find very positive because it enables you to take many shots in one charge and still, the battery does not add much to the total weight of the camera, which weighs about 165 grams or 5.8 ounces.

LCD Display
I am very positive about the 2.5-inch LCD display, because it is bright and therefore usable in the sunniest outdoor conditions. If you rotate the camera when watching the photos you have taken, the picture will rotate too. So, if you have taken a picture with the camera in upright position and then view it on the camera LCD display, it will automatically adjust the picture if you turn the camera into upright position while watching the picture. That way the picture will fill the whole screen, no matter what mode the picture was taken in. A practical function, in my opinion.

The screen is not totally flawless though. In poor light conditions, the picture on the screen often shows a slightly noisy image, even though the photo itself will be perfect when you shoot it.

Navigation, buttons and controls
I just have to mention this great, not to mention funny, feature that has to do with the control dial of the camera. It is pressure-sensitive, so if you touch it gently (without pushing it in completely) the camera display will show an enlarged image of the selected button/feature and explain what it actually does. There is also a mode dial to the upper right with four modes: Auto, Manual, Scene and Video.

Another thing that impressed me was the user friendliness of the menu and navigation system. They are surprisingly easy to use and understand. In any shooting mode, just press the center button of the dial and you get an interface, which is easy and fast to operate.

Picture quality
In conditions with poor light, the images can get noisy if the chosen resolution is 5 MP or more, and if the object is far away, the flash will not reach it with enough intensity. Still, I am sure that this is not something that is unique to this camera alone.

Outdoors, the pictures have very good color, contrast and warmth. Here the 12 MPs really come to their use. You can shoot pictures with great quality and detail even in mega poster sizes! With such a high amount of pixels you can easily zoom in on small objects without getting a pixelated image. This compensates the fairly low optical zoom, which most compact cameras have. (3.7x on this model). In addition, the camera's wide screen function is a gem if you want to view your photos on a wide screen TV or computer monitor.

Indoors, I would not recommend using 12MP mode in rooms with poor light, or if the object is too far away for the flash to have full effect.