Canon PowerShot SD800

The Canon SD800 IS Digital ELPH features a compact, stylish case with rounded horizontal edges, and a retracting lens to make it pocket-friendly. The Canon SD800IS includes a 7.1 megapixel imager, and a Canon-branded 3.8x optical zoom lens covers an optimized range of 28-105mm equivalent, a good wide-angle to moderate telephoto.

What's really cool, though, is that the Canon ELPH SD800 IS incorporates Canon's excellent Image Stabilization (hence the "IS" in the model name) technology that drastically reduces the effects of camera shake at slow shutter speeds, or long zoom settings. This means that with the SD800 IS Digital ELPH, you can shoot in low light without having to put the camera on a tripod to avoid the camera shake. IS typically lets you take crisp shots under light conditions four times darker than you could manage without it.

Exposure is fully automatic, but the user can tweak it with 2.0 EV of exposure compensation, and three metering modes to handle difficult lighting, while 10 scene modes keep the camera approachable for beginners. A long-exposure mode in the Canon SD800 ELPH also lets you manually set exposure times up to 15 seconds long, and a large 2.5 inch LCD display plus an optical viewfinder -- rather rare on digicams these days -- gives you a choice when framing images. The Canon SD800 Digital ELPH also sports a rather wide ISO sensitivity range, from 100 to 1,600.

Canon also manufactures a line of photo printers, and prides itself on the level of integration between its cameras and printers. The Canon Digital ELPH SD800 IS is PictBridge capable, so is able to print to any printer that supports PictBridge directly, without the need for a computer in the middle. When connected to a Canon printer, though, you can set paper size, print quality, and a number of other parameters; capabilities lacking in basic PictBridge connections.