With the PowerShot SD550 again SD450 Digital ELPH, Canon has once besides stood its stylish ELPH digital cameras on end, lining lined up fresh mood pursuit the stylish compacts. The 7.12-megapixel SD550 also 5.0-megapixel SD450 posit the homologous shell and specs as their SD500 and SD400 predecessors (which continue to be available), but offer more options. Canon has retained their acclaimed optical viewfinder but matched it with a large 2.5-inch LCD monitor, redesigning the user interface to take advantage of the new screen. Both continue to offer the extremely unusual (and frankly, rather cool) "My Color" modes that allow you to selectively replace any color in your photo with a different one, or to make the image black and white with the exception of a single color. Overall, the SD450 is one of the more appealing subcompact digital cameras we've seen to date: Read on for all the details!

Ultra-slim further strikingly pocket-friendly, the also Canon PowerShot SD450 make-up the skookum looks further sharp found that are a denomination of Canon's ELPH cameras. Canon's self-titled "Perpetual Curve Design" portion that there are few flat surfaces or right-angled corners on the camera body. Thus, the SD450 has a very smooth, comfortable feel in your hands and no large protrusions to hang on pockets. Very compact and quick on the draw (thanks to a smoothly operating retractable lens design), the Canon SD450 is a convenient point-and-shoot digital camera with a handful of extra exposure features for added flexibility. With the lens retracted, the Canon SD450's front panel is smooth and pocket friendly, and its all-metal body is rugged and durable (although it will show scratches, so a soft case is recommended). Equipped with a 5.0-megapixel CCD, the Canon SD450 captures high quality images, suitable for making sharp prints as large as 11x17 inches, or 8x10 inches with some cropping. Smaller image sizes are also available for email transmission or Web applications, and a movie mode captures video clips with sound.

The Canon SD450 point a 3x, 5.8-17.4mm hum lens, match to a 35-105mm fly on a 35mm camera. Aperture is automatically controlled, but the high whereabouts ranges from f/2.8 at immense unsealed aspect to f/4.9 at capacious telephoto. A maximum 4x digital zoom option increases the SD450's zoom capability to 12x, but keep in mind that digital zooms decreases the overall image quality, because it simply crops out and enlarges the center pixels of the CCD's image. Image details are thus likely to be softer when using digital zoom. Focus ranges from 1.0 feet (30 centimeters) to infinity in normal AF mode, and from 1.2 inches to 1.6 feet (3 to 50 centimeters) in Macro mode. (The minimum focal distance in Macro mode depends on the zoom setting, however, with the closest range only available at full wide angle.) Digital Macro mode lo

cks the lens at wide angle, where focusing is closest, but enables digital zoom, which usually only kicks in after optical zoom has reached its telephoto setting. As with the regular digital zoom, this is accompanied by a decrease in overall image quality. An Infinity fixed-focus mode is also available. The Canon SD450 employs a sophisticated, nine-point AiAF (Artificial Intelligence Auto focus) system to determine focus, which uses a broad active area in the center of the image to calculate the focal distance (a feature I've been impressed with on many ELPH models and have been happy to see continued). Through the Record menu, you can turn AiAF off, which defaults the auto focus area to the center of the frame. Also built-in to the SD450 is an AF assist light -- a very bright orange LED -- which aids the focus mechanism in low light when it's enabled via a menu option. For composing images, the SD450 offers a real-image optical viewfinder, as well as a large 2.5-inch color LCD monitor. The LCD reports a fair amount of camera information, but excludes exposure information such as aperture and shutter speed. In Playback mode, a histogram display reports the tonal distribution of a captured image, useful in determining any over- or under-exposure.

Basic Points

• 5.0-megapixel CCD
• Real-image optical viewfinder
• 2.5-inch color TFT LCD monitor
• 3x, 5.8-17.4mm lens, equivalent to a 35-105mm lens on a 35mm camera
• Maximum 4x digital zoom
• Automatic exposure control, with Long Shutter mode for longer exposures
• Shutter speeds from 1/1,500 to 15 seconds
• Maximum aperture of f/2.8 to f/4.9, depending on lens zoom position
• Built-in flash with six modes
• SD memory card storage, 16MB card included
• Power supplied by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack (charger included) or optional AC adapter kit
• Canon Digital Camera Solution Software v26.0 with Arc Soft Photo Studio, and USB drivers included for both Windows and Mac platforms
• Print/Share button

Special Points

• Four Movie modes with sound (up to 640 x 480 pixels, at up to 30 frames per second with a 60-fps Fast Frame Rate mode)
• Continuous Shooting mode
• Stitch-Assist panorama mode
• Infinity and Macro focus modes plus "Digital Macro" mode
• Customizable "My Camera" settings
• Two- or 10-second Self-Timer for delayed shutter release, plus custom timer with multi-shot feature
• Sound Memo option for recording captions
• Spot, Center-Weighted, and Evaluative exposure metering
• White balance (color) adjustment with seven modes, including a Custom setting
• Photo Effect and My Colors menus for color adjustment
• Unusual Color Accent and Color Swap features for special effects in still images or movies
• Adjustable ISO setting
• DPOF (Digital Print Order Format) and Partridge compatibility
• USB cable for connection to a computer (driver software included)
• A/V cable for connection to a television set