Canon Powershot SD870IS Review
Canon PowerShot SD870IS 8MP Digital Camera with 3.8x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Silver)
The Canon Powershot SD870IS (known as IXUS 860IS in Europe and IXY Digital 910IS in Japan), announced in August 2007, is a replacement for the SD800IS (IXUS 850IS), one of 2006’s most popular ultra compacts. Powershot SD870IS has 8 megapixels and 3.8x wide angle optical image stabilization, like Canon Powershot SD800IS. However, it has a larger 3-inch LCD screen and more photo sharpness. Canon SD870IS also updates the face detection system which able to focus up to 35 faces at a time from more angles, and does quicker than its predecessor.
Example images taken with Canon Powershot SD870IS
Here is Canon Powershot SD870IS video review (credited:cameralabs)
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Buyer’s Review 
“He Points, He Shoots, He Scores!”
The Cannon Powershot SD870 IS is about everything you could want in an ultra compact point-and-shoot camera. It offers excellent picture quality, a large vivid LCD display, smart defaults, fine low-light sensitivity, a high quality movie mode (including audio), an outstanding wide-angle lens and a photo capturing speed (most important for me) that leaves many other digital cameras in the dust.
I cover a fair amount of electronics trade shows such as CES and CEDIA for my home theater site (Big Picture Big Sound), so I need a camera that has a good macro feature for close-ups, quick on the draw, fine low light sensitivity and zoom for long-range shots at press conferences. Portability is also a key, as I need to carry the camera around in my pocket along with other gadgets for note-taking. I’ve owned a Canon Powershot S400 Digital Elph for a couple of years, and it has served me well, but the lag time between pushing the shutter button and actually getting a picture (especially indoors) was frustrating, also its low light sensitivity is fairly poor.
The Canon Power shot SD870 retains all of the positive features of the earlier Digital ELPH models, yet many improves on the weaknesses. You can go from power up to photos snapped in about a second. And once the camera is powered up and ready, you can capture shots in one or half second or less (depends on lighting conditions). For taking pictures in low lighting, the “Night Scene” mode (along with built-in optical image stabilization) is superb, it enabling me to capture on-stage action at a press event from 20 or 30 ft. away (ISO sensitivity on the camera goes all the way up to 1600, but you can expect some graininess when going above ISO 400). Other scene modes such as “portrait” are also handy when you’re going in for a shot-range or close-up shots and want to capture a posed or candid picture of a loved one with an “artistic” out-of-focus background.
In terms of size, the camera is tiny, yet comfortable in the hand. Powershot SD 870 IS’s aluminum frame feels solid without being weighty and controls are logically laid out so you can be up and running without cracking the manual. Unfortunately the tiny size means it does not take standard AA batteries, but the Lithium Ion battery that comes with it will last through an approximately a couple of hundred shots in normal use. You may need to buy a spare battery however, as there is not always a lot of warning between when the on-screen low battery gauge starts blinking and the camera powers itself down (note: get the Lenmar NB-5L equivalent - it will last about as long as the Canon for about 1/3 the price).
All in all, I’m very pleased with my purchase of the Canon Powershot SD 870IS and I’m looking forward to use it to snap high quality photos of the latest gadgets at next year’s Consumer Electronics Show.
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Tags: canon, Digital Camera, powershot, review, sd series, sd870is, wide angle zoom