Canon PowerShot S400 Digital ELPH Digital Camera

Best point & shoot digital...period

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Jun 3, 2003 | 112 out of 116 found this Canon PowerShot S400 Digital ELPH review helpful

I was looking for a compact point & shoot style camera with 4 megapixel or better and the s400 was the best thing out there. It's easy to learn & use and takes excellent images. Battery life is OK, but given the tiny size & weight I can't f...ault it. The smaller 320x240 video size is not a problem given the trade off of shooting up to 3 minutes of video at a time. Awesome feature. Get a bigger flash memory card and you're good to go. If you're a tweeker or a photo geek maybe you want a more feature rich camera, but if you want excellent image quality with smal size & weight and point and shoot ability, this is a no-brainer. Read more Less

I would recommend the Nikon equivalent

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Jun 11, 2003 | 106 out of 149 found this Canon PowerShot S400 Digital ELPH review helpful

I’ve had an S400 for just over a month now. I’m pleased with the camera, from the point of view that it’s compact and you really just “point and shoot”. As for features and functions, although its been badly criticized for not having that many, ...I’ve found it to have more than enough. The quality of the pictures seems to be good, and I’m starting to learn what it likes and dislikes with regard to lighting etc. However, one thing I have been disappointed with is the cameras build quality. On receipt of the camera I found some scratches to the outer case. Although no product is delivered perfect, I would have expected more for the $500 price tag! However what’s really irritated me, is that have recently found hair and dirt on the inside of the cameras lens. If this has resulted from usage, given the way I have treated it, there’s a problem with the design. If this has resulted from manufacture, it’s very poor quality control. As the return to vendor time frame has expired, I now have to send my new camera back to Canon under warranty for a service. Given the above, I would recommend the Nikon equivalent.Best regards,James Read more Less

First Digital

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Jun 3, 2003 | 47 out of 51 found this Canon PowerShot S400 Digital ELPH review helpful

Great quality out of a really small package. I bought a 256Mb compact flash card and I can get 125 pics that print at 11x15 with better than 35mm quality. Love the camera!

Great Point and Shoot Camera

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Jul 30, 2003 | 41 out of 44 found this Canon PowerShot S400 Digital ELPH review helpful

Fantastic camera for those wanting plain and simple "point and shoot" digital camera in a small, compact, easy to use package. Great image quality on near field pictures in which autofocus is applied. The autofocus takes some time to appl...y in some instances and is not always where you want it to be so it may take a few tries before getting it in place. In addition, the flash is weak, so forget about far field pictures. However, the size of the camera (fits within the palm of the hand and is only 6.7 ozs.) and its ease of use allows one to quickly whip it out and take a picture. The fine mode at 3 mega-pixel resolution is great for 4 x 6 pictures and allows one to budget approximately 1 MB per picture in superfine mode and about 750 KB per picture in fine mode. This allowed for at least 32 picture on the 32 MB CF card (50 pictures in fine mode rather than superfine). As for the media, the CF card is great and can be found cheaper than other memory cards, so where you spend more for this camera you will be able to recover some on the cost of a larger (128 MB or 256 MB) memory card. You'll also save on batteries -- this camera will need recharging of the batteries after a full day of use, but the battery charger is easy to bring along (great cordless design) and charges within 2 hours. Hence, no need to spend 20 bucks a pop on expensive camera batteries or carry around 50 AA batteries. This camera would get 5's if it had a small hot-shoe for flash add on and a lens adapter to add on lenses, but its a point and shoot, so I guess one can't ask for too much. Read more Less

I like it!

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Jun 3, 2003 | 37 out of 37 found this Canon PowerShot S400 Digital ELPH review helpful

I just bought the Canon PowerShot S400 and so far so good. It takes great pictures and is easy to use once you take time to play with it for a little while. I was amazed at the quality of the pictures I took i a very low light setting and I love th...e size of the camera. The zoom on the camera is decent and the macro feature works well. I love being able to use the video mode with sound. My only disappoints so far are the quality of video in low light is horrible. There aren't very many settings (i.e., action) that you can use and the shutter delay is a little slow for action shots. All in all, I really like the camera. I always have a camera with me where ever I go. Now I can actually see the pictures I take right away too. Read more Less

Good camera, but poor customer service

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Sep 23, 2003 | 32 out of 34 found this Canon PowerShot S400 Digital ELPH review helpful

Pros: size, picture quality, look, zoom

Cons: customer service, no manual focus, auto-focus, red-eye

I started early with Canon. I bought the Powerhsot S100 in 2000, upgraded to the S230 in 2002 and now to the S400. I must admit, the look and the picture quality were so much better that I had no choice really. For the picture quality, I compared th...e same shots to the Sony DSP-9's. Frankly, I loved the S400 picture so much more (warmer and more realistic colors, better contrast, greater pitch). Outdoor or indoor, the picture quality is remarkable.The only problem that I had was with the auto-focus. For some reason, a lot of my shots are blurry and very often, the camera has a hard time to focus on a subject or a landscape for example. If you had had the same problem. I am interested in your feedback (e-mail:stephansigo@yahoo
.com).Anyway, I called Canon, and got a voice messaging system. I left multiple messages, nobody never got back to me. Maybe I have a defectuous camera or maybe not, but how can I found out if Canon does not return my calls?? In any case, great camera (unless the auto-focus problem is standard), but poor customer support. Read more Less

Canon support is the worst in the industry

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Dec 21, 2003 | 15 out of 15 found this Canon PowerShot S400 Digital ELPH review helpful

Pros: nice design

Cons: support; support; support

I had problems with my Canon digital camera, which were within the protection of manufacturers warranty. Unfortunately, despite many letters and email attempts to contact proper people within Canon, I could not obtain any meaningful reply. Canon si...mply decided to "play dead"! It seems that this is their standard mode of operations, as it can be also seen from other users feedback. As a result of this extremely frustrating experience, I have decided not to buy any Canon product in the future. Read more Less

Very Good

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Oct 30, 2003 | 22 out of 31 found this Canon PowerShot S400 Digital ELPH review helpful

Pros: Very good

Cons: I love it

Although this is the first digital camera that i bought, i think is really good. IS not heavy at all, it has alot of functions. It can take a wide view and when you make a video, most cameras don't have voice when making it, but canon 400 has. So... it think is realy awesome and i love it!! Read more Less

Great Digital Camera

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Jul 29, 2003 | 16 out of 21 found this Canon PowerShot S400 Digital ELPH review helpful

Its been 3 months using the camera. It is a very user friendly camera and good picture quality. All the fnctions is more than enough especially the compact size. U can bring anyway in ur pocket. Few missing function is no manual focus, only 3 minute... movie recording and no 640x480 video resolution, althought these are not the important function. Ixus 400 still my number 1 buying choice. Read more Less