Canon Powershot Stabilized 2 7 Inch Black Survey In short, this is a great camera in a very small package that produces good results! I wanted a small portable camera with HD video capabilities that I could take with me when I did not want to lug around my DSLR (Canon 40D + lenses) and this little gem fits the bill perfectly. This camera replaced a I bought this camera for a scuba diving trip in the Caribbean. This is my first product review, but I was so impressed with this camera, I have to do one!! We bought the underwater case to go with it so we could take it diving with us. The camera was amazing. I am just a recreational photographer (taking pictures of kids, sports and hobbies. The 1400 took amazing photos of fish, eels, and other creatures between the depths of 1 ft- 100ft. Some pics still turned out a little blue, while others turned out so well I think they could be published. Underwater photography is very hard, I have heard because of so many variables. I rarely get blurry pictures on land or underwater. Sometimes if the first is blurry I quickly change setting and the 2nd is not. I took several pictures while chasing fish or stingrays and 99. 9% were not blurry. I don't think you can ask more than that out of a point and shoot! Indoors the colors are very real. I do not find yellow tints to pictures. I was taking pictures of the kids around the dinner table, (which has a big window next too it) and the kids looked great. Usually with past cameras they turned out dark because of the light coming in through the window. Outdoors the pictures are beautiful. Again you may have to change the setting, but it is easy. If the water was not turquoise enough, I changed it to beach setting and the pictures showed every detail. I cannot say enough about this camera, but I think every night on our vacation we just talked about how amazed we were with it. I studied hard before buying this camera. I spent many hours looking between the 780, 940, 1300 and 1400. For a few dollars more you get a lot more cameras. This camera is very small. It can fit into your front pocket very easy. Love it!! I bought this for my wife to replace a 5 year old Sony DSC-T7 (5 megapixel point and shoot). The Canon has FAR superior low light performance, image stabilization works well, great compact size, nice big LCD relative to the size of the camera, and easy intuitive controls (although tiny buttons, if you have big fingers, they're a touch too small in my opinion). To compare, I took similar shots with both cameras, one outside in full sun, the other inside in low light with the flash on. I left both cameras in full auto mode. On both shots, the Canon outperforms the older camera (with 5 years of improved technology, I expected nothing less). The low light flash shot was dramatically better on the Canon (and taking a low light shot without the flash was even more extreme). The outdoor shot, although the Canon was better, it wasn't a whole lot better. To be honest, for 14 megapixels I was expecting a little more fine detail/sharpness in the image. Shame on me for thinking a higher resolution sensor would really make that much difference -- when examining fine details, it's really all about optics, and no point and shoot lens is going to measure up to my expectations (I used to do a lot of SLR photography with pro level lenses). So don't expect anything remotely resembling SLR quality results; remember you're buying a point and shoot. You won't be making any 11x17 prints to proudly hang on the wall. But the portability of this camera is fantastic; you can easily drop it in a pocket and have it ready when the moment strikes, and the results will look great in a scrapbook or family photo album. And when I started a family I stopped lugging around an SLR and camera bag. . . the diaper bag is plenty. ;-) I noticed most of the bad reviews are about picture quality. Out of the box, the pics are a bit weak. Mostly lack of detail. This is because the camera usually defaults to a very high ISO. Higher than necessary it seems. The 1400 now has a THIRD switch between Auto Picture and Movie mode. The Program (manual) mode. This is where the detail comes back into your pictures! Set the ISO to between 80 and 200 and you'll see all the wonderful detail of your subjects! It's too bad the auto
mode defaults to such a grainy picture, but it can be overcome with a simple switch. Unfortunately there is no way around this in video mode, so the 720P video is a bit on the grainy side. Still, 14MP for under $150 and in such a compact size, this is a great camera! I have had many Canon Elph cameras since they first came out. Something that I noticed is that when new features are released for a camera, Canon doesn't get it right the first time and sometimes the 2nd or 3rd versions of a similar camera are better. In this case, I am talking about the current small form factor. I had the previous version of this camera (SD 940IS) and this one is definitely an improvement. On the 940, the HD video was very jumpy. This version fixes that and it's much more smooth. The increase in MP to 14. 1 really doesn't improve things. It's more of a marketing point that camera makers shoot for because people like to see a higher MP. Another review mentioned blurry pictures. For some reason these small Canons seem to have that problem. I find it most when I don't use a flash indoors. I don't think the camera compensates correctly when a person chooses to have the flash turned off. The main thing that I like about this camera is its size. It's so small, that I can have it with me wherever I go. I recommend one of the Canon leather belt cases for someone who would want to carry this on a belt. When I use that with this camera, I hardly notice that it's there. It is true that the best camera is the one that you have with you, and with the SD1400, this is a camera you can always have with you. I also have a Pansonic ZS3 camera. It takes better pictures, but it's larger and therefore I don't carry it around. I will update this review with more details when time allows. I just wanted to give my first impressions.
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