The perfect digital companion

This camera has been my digital companion for over a year now, and it has performed perfectly in almost every situation I've put it through, and that's been a lot to ask! I've held the camera in my hand while downhill mountain biking, let it hang off the strap while snowboarding, and taken it all across the country in places a classy, delicate camera like this shouldn't go. But it held up beautifully, and not only did it survive put it captured all my memories of these travels with almost 'feel like you're there' quality. Honestly, I couldn't ask for anything better.

First of all, as you have assuredly read by now, this thing is micro! It's surface is not much larger than a credit card, it's thickness is less than that of a deck of cards, and it weighs about as much as a fig newton cookie. You can choose from four colours, silver, black, bronze and white. I opted for bronze, and the aluminum finish is very stylish. If you buy this camera, be prepared for it to get lots of attention. The guy next to you has his Sony Mavica from 1992 and it's the size of a cantaloupe with a wrist strap, he might tend to notice yours takes ten times the picture quality with one tenth the size.

Style aside, this camera would be just as much a gem if it were in an ugly wrapper, because the real treat is the pictures it takes. If you need more than 4 megapixels, you're either a photographer, graphic designer or just uber-nerd, because 2200x1700 is bigger than most any monitor setting you will encounter, and it can be used for excellent 8x10 prints. The colour is sharp, and even in auto mode the Digic colour processor finds a nice balance of dark and light. The LCD quickly processes what the camera is seeing, which is good because one of the downfalls of having such a small camera is that you get no optical viewfinder. However, for those that have digicams with both, do you really use the optical? Not usually. And since it is a 1.5" LCD, it consumes less batteries than larger screens. I have found the battery life to be more than adequate, and have taken over 100 full-quality pictures over spans of 2-3 days without recharging. Albiet most were in daylight and didn't use the battery suckage of the flash, but hey, just take pictures in daytime! What happens at night that could be so memorable anyways? Kidding.

But seriously, the camera looks great, it takes great photos, and the menus and software are equally impressive. Some of the features I've taken advantage of are the amazing macro capacity of this camera. I'm not too sure exactly how close you can get to things, but it's something like 10-15mm. That's almost touching it! Then, you can use the digital zoom to move in even closer. I wish I could show you some of the pictures of butterflies, bugs and wildlife I've captured super-close with that feature. Also, photostitch is excellent. It's a mode on the camera where you can take simultaneous panoramic photos of a landscape, and stitch them together later using the software provided by Canon. It makes it easy to make impressive 180 panoramas, or if you feel inclined even a 360 of your favourite room or landscape. Awesome for concerts! And lastly, the movie mode is excellent for capturing moving memories of special events that just can't be shown with a single image. The AVI movies are in 320x240 and can last up to 3 minutes. That just blows my mind - a camera this small that can act as a digital video camera, and if you upgrade the memory you could store dozens and dozens of these 3-minute, full quality videos.

The only possible drawbacks to this camera are as follows. Firstly, I've experienced some freezing after taking a picture, where the camera just doesn't want to return to the regular LCD viewfinder. But just pressing half-way on the picture taker button seems to clear that mess up just dandy. Secondly, since it is soooo small, you might want to take it everywhere, but its not meant to go everywhere. It's not waterproof, shockproof or dirt proof, so don't get carried away with your next Rugby tournament and get this beauty all mucked up. Lastly, and this affects nearly all new digital cameras, the 32 MB memory card it comes with is insufficient for what you will need. I recommend a 512MB SD card, which will give you 243 full res pics, 483 pics in medium 1, 841 in medium 2, and 1861 in the lowest (640x480) resolution. Only get a 1 gigabyte card if you travel the world for months at a time, because remember you can always download these pictures to a portable hard drive or another SD memory card.

My experience with this camera has been wonderful, and most of my friends and family are now searching eBay in envy to find one. It is excellent at what it does, and not only will it keep the techno-savvy 'smallest is best' guy happy, but it will interest the amateur photographer as well. It's pricey, but it pays for itself over and over again.