4.5 Out of 5

The 6-megapixel SD700 ELPH is a high-powered, ultra-compact point-and-shoot camera.This camera is small enough to fit in your pocket, but it weighs enough to make it comfortable to hold. There’s no sacrifice of quality, either – at 6 megapixels, with image-stabilized zoom, the SD700 IS takes sharp, colorful digital photos. The video feature is of surprisingly high quality for a digital point-and-shoot, much less for one so small.

This small fry packs a punch:
• Image stabilization (lets you take clearer shots in low light and high zoom).
• 4x optical zoom
• 2.5” LCD display and separate glass view-finder
• DIGIC II (DIgital Imaging Core, links functions for high-speed processing)
• iSAPS (Intelligent Scene Analysis based on Photographic Space, analyzes the scene and adjusts settings before capturing the image)
• 16:9 viewing option (to fit for wide screens)
• Superior movie quality

This camera has a variety of modes for different situations, including Auto, Portrait, Kids & Pets, Beach, Foliage, and tons more. It also has a manual mode for the more discerning photographer, where you can set ISO speed, white balance, and exposure compensation. However, it lacks aperture and shutter priority. The SD700 IS’s other features include popular options like macro function, color accent, and color swap. Macro function allows you to take pictures of objects up close, such as flowers or details of fabric, without them becoming blurry. Color accent lets you choose a color to highlight while the rest of the image is rendered black-and-white, and color swap lets you switch the colors of different objects within the image. It also comes with MyColor, which lets you change pictures to black-and-white, sepia, vivid color, or to adjust for light or dark skin tones.

The controls are well-engineered to fit the compact body of this camera. A rotating dial for switching modes peeks out from the right side, while the main menu and display buttons are located on the back. The only buttons on the top of the camera are the shutter release and surrounding zoom rocker. The buttons on the back make it easy to change your settings and shooting options, and the menu is intuitively designed. The only real difficulty we found with the camera’s body is the glass view-finder. Its position directly above the LCD makes it a little uncomfortable to look through, and it doesn’t display cross hairs. The designers were probably counting on customers making good use of the bright, 2.5” LCD.

The SD700 IS has great battery life for an ultra-compact – 240 shots (CIPA Standard). It comes with a newly-designed rechargeable battery, the NB-5L, which is about 40% more powerful than its predecessor, the NB-3L. This reduces the expense of buying batteries (unless you lose it, in which case a replacement will cost a bit). However, it can be inconvenient if you forget to recharge the battery, in which case you can’t just stick in some AAs.

Overall, the SD700 IS Digital ELPH proves that good things come in small packages. The combination of image stabilized zoom and other features make it a high-end camera. With both high-quality still photos and video, it’s the perfect pocket-sized point-and-shoot companion.

4.5 Out of 5