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| Reviewed by Ed Krimen - December 2005 |
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Whether you decide to buy the Canon PowerShot SD450 or another digital camera, be sure to share your digital photos on Photobird.com. Your photo albums on Photobird.com are easy to make, easy to share, and make your photos really stand out!
For more digital camera shopping help, visit:
 Photobird Digital Camera Buyer's Guide
Top 10 List for Buying a Digital Camera
Discuss this camera in our Canon forum
If you're shopping online, consider buying the Canon PowerShot SD450 from these high-quality retailers:
B&H
Amazon.com
J&R
Camera Introduction
Everyone needs a tiny digital camera to take along with them, wherever they go. Even if you have a huge, bulky, digital SLR, most photographers agree that it's wise to take along a tiny camera for those unexpected shots. And the Canon PowerShot SD450 is an excellent choice for that task.
It's amazing how small this camera is. And yet it performs extremely well. I carried the camera around with me in my pocket for the past few weeks and I'd often forget that I had it with me. I'd come across a photogenic scene, wish I had a camera with me, reach into my pocket, past my keys, tissue, lint, and finally find the camera.
The Canon PowerShot SD450 is at the "sweet spot" of tiny digital cameras. I strongly believe that the minimum size for the LCD screen on any camera should be 2.5", which is what the SD450 has. Any smaller, and the screen is too hard to see. 5 megapixels is enough for almost everyone. You really only need more if you're a professional photographer, or if you have very specific needs. 3x optical zoom should be the minimum. More optical zoom would be nice, but I'd prefer to compromise on camera size, to have a tiny camera that I can easily take with me, than to have more zoom. There were times that I'd wish I had at least 5x zoom, but it was rare. It's still quite impressive to be able to carry around such a small camera that takes such great photos.
Finally, before I review the camera in more detail, I have a recommendation if you're comparing the 5-megapixel SD450 with its sibling the 7-megapixel SD550. The SD550 is about $100 more. My advice is to save your $100, buy the 5-megapixel SD450, and use the $100 to buy a tripod ($25), a large 512MB Secure Digital memory card ($35), a copy of Understanding Exposure or Amphoto's Complete Book of Photography ($15) to improve your photography skills, and a subscription to a website where you can easily share your photos online, such as Photobird.com ($25). You'll get a tremendous amount more usage and benefits from this combination of products than you would from an extra 2 megapixels in your camera.
The Canon PowerShot SD450 box includes the following items:
The 5-megapixel Canon PowerShot SD450 digital camera -
On the left, you can see the various photos of the camera. The shutter button is the large button in photo 4, right next to the small power button. The left side of the camera, where the door is for the USB and A/V ports, is shown in photo 5. Photo 6 shows the back of the camera and the large 2.5" LCD screen. You can see the (round) tripod mount on the bottom of the camera in photo 8, with the door that accesses the battery and Secure Digital memory card to the right of the tripod mount. The door for the battery and Secure Digital memory card is shown open with the battery and Secure Digital memory card partially ejected in photo 9. Photo 10 shows the camera next to the battery and the 32MB Secure Digital memory card that ships with the camera.
One lithium-ion battery -
Canon includes one of their own tiny, proprietary lithium-ion batteries with the SD450. For casual shooters, it should easily last at least a day. If you shoot a lot of photos on your trips, you might want to consider purchasing a spare battery to have available with you just in case. For most users, one battery should be enough though. You can see in photo 9 where the battery is inserted into the camera.
Wrist strap -
A good quality wrist strap is included to keep the camera tethered to your arm.
32MB Secure Digital memory card -
Canon includes only a 32MB memory card with the camera, but you're definitely going to need more. Get at least a 256MB or preferably a 512MB card, or more. You can see in photo 9 where the memory card is inserted into the camera, right below the battery.
(It's really amazing how technology develops: Over 4 years ago, the 128MB Compact Flash memory card I bought cost 4 times more than the 512MB Secure Digital memory card I bought just a few weeks ago (from the same vendor). Secure Digital memory cards are about a quarter of the size of Compact Flash memory cards, and yet this 512MB memory card stores 4 times more data than my original Compact Flash memory card! Amazing.)
USB cable -
The USB cable is used to connect the camera to your computer. Be sure your computer has a USB port so that you can transfer your photos to your computer.
A/V cable -
The A/V cable is used to connect your camera to standard RCA jacks so you can view your photos on your television.
CD-ROM
containing Canon Utilities software - The software that Canon includes with the Canon PowerShot SD450 is very good and mature. It might have a somewhat steep learning curve for novices though. As with most computers, you don't need to use the Canon software to transfer your photos from your digital camera to your computer. When you connect the Canon PowerShot SD450 to your computer, it appears as another storage device, similar to a hard drive or CD, from which you can transfer your photos.
4 User Guides -
It's a good thing the Canon PowerShot SD450 is fairly easy to use because the user guides don't help much. Canon includes four user guides with the SD450: Basic User Guide, Advanced User Guide, Direct Print User Guide, and Software Starter Guide. It's a shame Canon doesn't spend as much time on the manuals as they do designing the rest of what comes in the box. While the content of the manuals is helpful, the design and the layout of the manuals doesn't encourage the user to read them. Here's a good example of what a mess the manuals are: the Basic User Guide, which is the introductory guide in the set, is buried within the package of guides; it really should be the first one users see. Hopefully Canon will try to make the manuals more useful, instead of just sticking them in the box to satisfy a product manager's bill of materials.
Review criteria
As I mentioned above, the Canon PowerShot SD450 is at the "sweet spot" of tiny digital cameras, balancing its tiny size with a large 2.5" LCD screen, 3x zoom, and 5 megapixels -- the minimum one should consider with today's technology.
While most people will simply use the camera in Auto mode with excellent results, the Canon PowerShot SD450 also has a manual mode, in which you can set the white balance, exposure compensation, spot metering, and ISO. A handful of color effects are also available that you can experiment with, such as sepia and black and white, along with settings to affect the vividness, neutrality, and to reduce the sharpness of colors. I don't expect these extra effects to be very useful to most people, unless you're interested in experimenting.
The Canon PowerShot SD450 has a variety of scene modes, to adjust the look of the photo depending on the situation: kids and pets, fireworks, underwater, foliage, snow, etc. The color effects and these scene modes are located in different menus, and given the relative difficulty in finding the correct menu and menu selection, I expect that these features will most likely be unused and forgotten (if not found in the first place). In urgent photo situations, in which you're trying to catch the action or a specific scene, I doubt most people who use this camera are going to think "Oh wait! There's kids and pets running around! Quick! Switch to "kids and pets" mode!" Not going to happen, because by the time you find the right setting to change, the photographic moment may be gone. Most people will just stick with Auto or experiment with the settings in their spare time.
It's unfortunate that the Canon PowerShot SD450 doesn't have more powerful aperture-priority, shutter-priority, and manual modes. Very unfortunate, because it's a great camera at a great size. The scene and color modes are nice, but I'd expect that adding more conventional manual modes would help bridge these customers to higher-end cameras and digital SLRs as they gain experience with aperture and shutter settings. The menu system in the Canon PowerShot SD450 is actually pretty good and easy to navigate even for large hands, so adding these additional manual settings would have integrated well.
In addition to the manual modes, a tilt-and-swivel LCD screen would be a very nice feature for this camera. In any case, the LCD screen performs well at sharp angles.
Finally, the Canon PowerShot SD450 has a viewfinder in addition to the large 2.5" LCD. I will probably never use the viewfinder on a camera of this size. I know other people would greatly miss the viewfinder if there wasn't one. But the viewfinder on this camera is so small, it's like looking through the eye of a needle. I used it once just to try it out, and it's really difficult to see anything.
Out of the box, the Canon PowerShot SD450 is very easy to use, if you have some experience with digital cameras. If this is your first digital camera, you might need some help at first, but once you learn the basics, it should be smooth sailing.
Canon cleverly tries to fit as many functions as possible on the few buttons that are on the camera. Understandably, there's very little room for lots of buttons on such a tiny camera whose back side is 80% covered with the huge 2.5" LCD screen. The buttons are small, but if you concentrate hard enough, even people with large hands should be able to push the buttons. The multi-directional button has a myriad of functions attached to it; for example, press right to adjust the flash settings and press left to turn on macro mode.
In shooting mode, you can turn on a two-dimensional function menu that appears along the left side and bottom of the LCD screen as an overlay on top of the scene you are shooting. As you change the functions, camera settings, scene modes, and color modes, the resulting image on the LCD changes almost immediately. Use the left/right and up/down directions on the multi-directional button to choose your desired function and mode.
I found this menu to be very easy to use after only a little bit of time with it. I don't play video games any more (no time, unfortunately), but I was able to quickly navigate through the menus using the multi-directional button much like a video game controller keypad. I have large hands and it was very easy and quick to change settings and modes, assuming you know what setting you want and where it is on the menu. The multi-directional button is very responsive.
The door for the A/V out and USB ports was very difficult for me to open at first. Naturally, I'm afraid of breaking anything that I can't fix, so I was very careful with it. To open it, lift the bottom of the door slightly, and then slide the door out, away from the camera. It's hinged on a thick piece of rubber. Once you figure it out, it's fairly easy to open repeatedly. You'll need to open this door to connect the USB cable to the camera and to your computer, to enable you to transfer your photos. Otherwise, you can do like I do and use a memory card reader, such as the SanDisk ImageMate 8 in 1 USB 2.0 Card Reader/Writer, which is a much more efficient solution for transferring photos to your computer.
Yes, this is one tiny camera. Might not be the smallest, but the Canon PowerShot SD450 is very small, especially considering its large 2.5" LCD screen. And it fits easily into all but the tiniest of pockets.
It's hard to imagine this camera getting any smaller, unless they eliminate the viewfinder and make the camera thinner. Any smaller and it might be difficult to handle and to use. Just don't make the LCD screen any smaller. Bigger is better for LCDs.
You can see just how tiny the Canon PowerShot SD450 is in photo 11 with the camera in front of a $20 bill.
The Canon PowerShot SD450 is very well built. It's one solid camera. Of course, I don't recommend dropping it, but does feel solid like a rock. It's not heavy though. It has a good weight, although lighter could be better. The camera feels good in the hands and is well balanced.
As I mentioned above, the door for the A/V out and USB ports is a little tricky to figure out at first, but it too is solid and doesn't feel flimsy.
One thing that I'm disappointed about is that Canon doesn't include any type of protective case, cloth, or covering with the camera to protect it when it's in your pocket. It doesn't make much sense to me to have a separate case for the camera because it would make the camera that much more bulkier and larger. Since the camera is so small, a simple cloth pouch would have been a good addition to include in the box. I really didn't want to scratch up the camera in my pocket during the period I had the camera on loan, so I improvised by keeping the camera wrapped up in a small shoe mitt that hotels usually provide in their rooms. It worked out really well and kept the camera scratch free even though it was in my pocket with keys for several days.
All in all, the Canon PowerShot SD450 seems like a tough camera that will last for many years.
The Canon PowerShot SD450 has a very distinctive, plain "Canon" design. It's like a Chevy. Or, maybe Toyota. Anyway, it's very pedestrian. It has some appeal, mostly due to its tiny size, but it doesn't have the sleekness of a tiny Sony camera, for example. The Canon is more cute.
That's really all there is to it, unfortunately. Sleek Sony. Cute Canon. Not that cute is bad. It's just that when tennis icon Maria Sharapova picks an unbranded camera off the shelf, she'd probably choose the Sony because it looks cooler.
The Canon PowerShot SD450 starts up and is ready to go in about a second. It's really quick, which is great when you need to take those quick shots. Shot to shot time is also very fast. I never felt that the camera or its auto focus was too slow.
One feature that I like is its continuous shooting mode. When you're in manual mode, you can set the camera to shoot continuously as long as you hold down the shutter button. I used this mode when I was taking photos of waves crashing on the beach. I wanted to get the shot just at the right moment, which is difficult to time correctly. The continuous shooting mode helped in this situation, when you're shooting a scene with ongoing movement.
The battery on the Canon PowerShot SD450 seemed to last a fairly long time. I shot over 150 photos, 1 short movie, and reviewed all of the photos a few times in playback mode in one battery charge. Not bad. Battery seems to take a couple of hours to fully charge. Also not bad.
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a battery indicator on the camera, except when you're just about to run out of power. For daily use, I think you'll be okay on one charge, as long as you recharge overnight. But if you plan to do a lot of shooting, consider getting a second battery.
I'm very happy with the photo quality of the Canon PowerShot SD450. I tried it in a variety of conditions from overcast flat lighting (goats and more goats eating weeds in San Francisco) to afternoon sun (Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz boat traffic) to sunset (Point Reyes Limantour Beach, cruise ship departing, and Golden Gate Bridge lamp shot) and it performed well in all of them. Seaweed that washes up on the beach is usually pretty gross, but this camera can even make gross seaweed look artistic.
Surprisingly, auto mode takes some very good shots, and seems to do well especially in shots with water. Manual mode has its own great characteristics, especially when vivid mode is on.
I took 312 photos with the Canon PowerShot SD450, and I've picked my favorite 36 photos. All of the photos I've provided are unretouched, straight out of the camera, no post processing or cropping.
Likewise, the Canon PowerShot SD450 also performs well indoors. The flash is very powerful and the camera reproduces scenes effectively, such as this one of a poster on a white brick wall. When not using the flash, adjusting the white balance and allowing the camera to shoot for a longer exposure time still produced great photos. Because the camera was handheld with the longer exposure times, some photos came out blurry from the handheld shaking, but it only took a few tries to get some photos that really looked good.
At about $300, the Canon PowerShot SD450 is an excellent deal. If it was $50 to $100 less, I would have given it 5 stars. The camera is very well built, the photo quality is superb, and its features hit the sweet spot of today's tiny digital cameras: 5 megapixels, 3x zoom, and 2.5" LCD. If you're shopping for a digital camera in this range, a camera that you'll use for years, you can't go wrong with this investment.
If you're shopping online, consider buying the Canon PowerShot SD450 from these high-quality retailers:
B&H
Amazon.com
J&R
My Favorite Features:
Tiny size, fits easily in your pocket
Excellent quality photos
Large 2.5" LCD screen
Easy to use
Solid construction
Fast start-up time
Well-designed battery charger
Uses relatively inexpensive Secure Digital memory cards
Tripod mount
Reasonable price
Areas of Improvement:
Include a thin, protective case for the camera
Needs a battery indicator
Use AA batteries instead of proprietary batteries
Price could be lower
Include aperature-priority and shutter-priority modes
Tilt and swivel LCD screen
If you're looking for a tiny digital camera to take along with you wherever you go, then the Canon PowerShot SD450 is an excellent choice. It has 5 megapixels, 3x zoom, and a large 2.5" LCD screen -- a group of features that hits the "sweet spot" of today's tiny digital cameras. The Canon PowerShot SD450 is very well built, easy-to-use, and takes excellent photos. The only thing I really missed was a protective covering for the camera, which you can easily find on your own. At about $300, the Canon PowerShot SD450 is an excellent investment that should provide you with thousands upon thousands of precious memories.
Whether you decide to buy the Canon PowerShot SD450 or another digital camera, be sure to share your digital photos on Photobird.com. Your photo albums on Photobird.com are easy to make, easy to share, and make your photos really stand out!
Related Links
Photos of the Canon PowerShot SD450
Sample photos from the Canon PowerShot SD450
Sample photos in their original sizes from the Canon SD450
Discuss this camera in our Canon forum
Canon's PowerShot SD450 website
More reviews of the Canon PowerShot SD450
More tiny cameras in the Photobird Digital Camera Buyer's Guide
See all cameras in the Photobird Digital Camera Buyer's Guide
Photobird's Top 10 Tips for Buying a Digital Camera
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Ed Krimen is an accomplished photographer who has taken thousands of digital photos. As co-founder and CEO of Photobird.com, Ed wants to make it truly easy for you to create attractive online photo albums to share your photos with your friends and family.
Special thanks to Alina for her time, effort, and talent.
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