Worthy successor to the Digital Elph line

Author's Rating:

Pros: Great image quality, pocketability, canon quality

Cons: Somewhat slow focus times, price

The Bottom Line: 
For great image quality, robust build quality, quick startup times and bullet-proof automatic settings, you really can't go wrong.

Author's Review
I've been a huge fan of the Canon Digital Elph line and Canon products in general for a long time, and have owned the S100, S110, S200 and S400, due to a combination of upgrades and "accidents." With each sucessive camera, Canon has slowly upped the ante, but with the S400 Canon has gone beyond a few minor additional features to produce what I consider the ultimate "pocket camera." I'll focus primarliy on the new features from the previous Digital Elph cameras.

I'm reviewing this as a "point and shoot" or "pocket" camera, and looking at the camera with this frame of reference, it truely excels. Other reviewers have pointed out lack of manual controls, etc., but I don't believe that critisism is appropriate, since this camera is not designed with a "manual user" in mind. This being said, if you need manual functions you will not be happy with this camera.

Exterior Details
As I mentioned above, this camera is the ultimate pocket camera, and excels in that capacity. I have an excellent Canon SLR for art photography, but with my first Elph purchase was looking for something that could easily be carried around, and be on hand for snapshots. Anyone who has used an SLR knows that the framing, focusing, etc. is time consuming, and makes it difficult to capture spur of the moment-type shots. An SLR will almost always produce a higher quality photo than a pocket camera, but if you can't get the camera out to capture baby's first steps, or the reaction of your friends after a great joke, what good is it for snapshots? Worse yet, who wants to carry an SLR to a party, bar, dance club, or day-long walk around an amusement park?

The S400 fits in your pocket easily, and with the purchase of the Canon belt case, fits in a "holster" on your belt without being so large as to look "nerdy." The camera is about the size of two decks of cards stacked on top of each other, and is bulit like a tank. My elphs have been sat on, dropped and generally beat up, withoutout missing a beat.

One thing you may also notice as the digital elph line has evolved is that the button layout has become more and more intelligent as the camera have progressed, and I find the S400 to be the best thus far. On/off, shutter release and zoom functions are largely unchanged from previous versions of the camera. The biggest changes, and the most welcomed from my perspective, are the mode wheel and shoot/playback switch.

Anyone who has used an SLR or most other film cameras will immediately recognise the mode dial. It is a small wheel that allows you to select between automatic mode, manual, panoramic and movie mode. The S200 accomplished this through menus, but with the S400 you can easily switch modes, and see which mode you are in before you even turn the camera on. Great idea Canon!

My favorite addition is a relatively simple one. The S200 and S110 had a single switch to select camera mode, movie mode, and playback mode. The S400 moves movie mode to the aforementioned mode dial, and has only camera/playback in its place. I can't tell you how many times my S110/S200 was set to movie mode and I have movies of people grinning like idiots, and the operator of the camera saying "I pressed the shutter button... I'm not sure what's happening!" Although good for a laugh, I don't miss these "movies," especially since I don't use movie mode often; there are video cameras for that!

The exterior styling has also changed a bit since previous models, including a new coating Canon claims will reduce scratching. It took me a little while to adjust to the new look, since previous digital elphs remained largely unchanged, but I actually prefer the new exterior styling now, although the chrome ring around the lens seems to attract fingerprints quite a bit.

Operation

I won't bore you with specifications you can easily get from Canon's website, but the 4.0 megapixel image is of excellent quality from such a small camera. I thought 2.0 MP's was fine for snapshot-type photography, but I didn't realise what I was missing until I got started with the S400. Detail is great, although again if you are expecting something on par with a Digital SLR you're going to be disappointed.

My favorite addition on the S400 is the 9 point autofocus, and Canons new DIGIC image processor. Basically the camera evaluates the entire frame of what you are shooting and modifies the camera's settings accordingly. It sounds a bit like a gimic, but it actualy works. I was taking a quick shot of someone standing with natural light from a window shining on them. I was worried the shot would look bad since the window projected "bands" of light onto the subject, and I didn't have time to set the fill flash. There was certainly adequate light to take the shot, but the camera was "smart" enough to fire the fill flash. Awesome, and just what you would want from a pocket camera!

There are tons of sample images and detailed technical reviews at places like Steve's Digicams (www.steves-digicams.com) so I won't go into many more technical details and instead focus on why this is the ultimate pocket camera.

Battery life has also improved greatly, and I no longer fear taking the S400 on a weekend trip and leaving the charger at home. I have yet to go on a 200-shot weekend "spree," but I've taken 50-100 pictures, 80% with flash with no problems. The battery charges quite quickly as well. My biggest complaint with the battery carries over from previous digital elphs: there is NO battery meter! All you get is a "low battery warning" when you have about 5-10 shots left. There is no good way to tell if you have 90% or 20% of your battery left. For this reason it's usually a good idea to charge your battery before taking the camera on a trip, or carrying a chaged spare.

What makes the S400 so good?

The 4.0MP sensor, Digic processor and size make this camera the ultimate choice for a go-anywhere snapshot camera that will really allow you to capture life's little moments. Digital photography allows you to once and for all abandon your concern over "wasting" film, since you can easily erase shots you don't want, and memory cards and disk space are cheap, so there's really no excuse not to "click away!"

I have brought my digital elph series all over the world, and its size makes it no problem to throw in a briefcase or backpack and forget its there until you need it. The S400 also has one of the fastest cycle times and startup times of the pocket camera. 2-4 seconds may not seem like a big deal, but when that "magic moment" comes up, my S400 will be saving the picture while someone else is still waiting for their camera to startup.

If you are not expecting a camera that will allow for lots of manual control, and make the purchase realising manual control, imaging options and to a lesser extent, optical quality will never match a larger camera you will not be disapointed. While that camera that's "only" a few inches bigger may have another megapixel and manual controls, it's not going to do you any good if you leave it at home since it's too big to fit in your pocket.