Day to day carry with you around type camera

Author's Rating:

Pros: Compact, sturdy, good quality photos

Cons: Night photos require some manual juggling

The Bottom Line: 
Forget about that pin hole camera you have on your phone.

Author's Review
Upside

Construction - Sturdy and beautifully crafted silver metal casing provides decent protection (intentional??) for internal electronics - enables mine to gracefully survive several drops with neither dents nor scratches though the included wrist strap is still highly recommended.

Compactness - Only a tad smaller than its equally enticing siblings in the S series, it fits surprisingly better in pants pockets. Feels significantly less bulky than my S230 and somehow induces disrespectful sentiments towards my A60.

Picture Quality - Produces well exposed outdoor pictures and close ups with stunning resolutions.

Stitch - Provides software to stitch pictures together - excellent result.

Movie clips - At 640x480 resolution its quality draws awes. Audio is clear even in noisy environment.

Battery - Good battery life, even with LCD on.


Downside

Compactness - Being so tiny without a hand grip? Requires small hands or a healthy amount of patience.

Chromatic Aberration - Very noticeable problem with this otherwise excellent quality lens.

Flash - Goes off often to the point of frustration in automatic mode. Use of slow-sync from manual mode solves the problem unless you have shaky hands from drinking. Note that manual mode provides few enough control to suit even novice. A tripod, ISO 100 and no flash deliver the best night shots.

Macro mode - Macro mode? What macro mode.

Battery - Canon proprietary - expensive.

Connector cover - Rubber made, kind of flaky.


Suits your needs?

Own a SLR film camera (and used to it)? If no, the SD100 is for you. If yes, the SD100 may not provide as much control as you are used to.