Philip Berne takes a curvy new 10-megapixel compact camera to a concert in our Canon Powershot SD890 IS review.
Review summary of the Canon PowerShot SD890 IS:
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 We've been using Canon's digital ELPH shooters since the beginning, and while we're glad to see them step away from the staid, box-of-cards form factor, we're always concerned when design changes make a camera more difficult to use. It was tough to keep a grip on the Canon Powershot SD890 IS, and even tougher to use the scroll wheel to switch between menu options. Images looked pretty good, regardless, so we were happy with the camera's performance, and we always love playing with Canon's innovative color-enhancing features. Still, as shooting got more difficult, with subjects that were farther away or under more complicated lighting conditions, picture quality dipped from "very good" to "above average". Image stabilization helped a lot, but we wonder if this camera wouldn't be better off sacrificing the extra zoom for some extra wide, and opening up the aperture a bit more. Release: April 2008. Price: $300.
Pros: Good all-around camera for portraits. Packs a bit more zoom than most compacts. Nice color features make for fun, artistic shots.
Cons: Design problems make shooting, adjusting settings difficult. Lacks wide range of scene modes. Panorama not as robust as we like.
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Full review of the Canon PowerShot SD890 IS:
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Design and interface - Mediocre
Canon has clearly made a stab at a stylish new design language with the Canon Powershot SD890 IS. Unfortunately, though the camera looks great standing still, there are a few design elements that make using the camera more difficult. Instead of the standard, boxy Elph design, the SD890 IS has a gently sloping curve, but this meant that there was less of a holding area for your right hand. Using the camera required a pincer-like grip, though with two hands we had less of a problem.
The controls are fairly standard, but the design could have been organized a bit better, with more sensitive control of the menus. The Canon Powershot SD890 IS uses a scroll wheel to navigate, well, everything. The scene modes require the scroll wheel, while for the main menus the wheel is optional, and you can simply click up and down on the circle. That's a relief, because the wheel was a complete bust. Scroll quickly and you'll pass your selection. Scroll slowly, though, and nothing happens. The wheel ticks by, but the menu doesn't change, and the display quickly times out. We occasionally found ourselves using the auto mode because clicking the mode wheel into place was easier than using the scroll wheel to choose between the 11 scene modes.
Otherwise, the camera is thin and light, and the curved design definitely helps it fit comfortably into a pants pocket. The camera uses an optical viewfinder as an alternative to the 2.5-inch screen, which is nice because the screen was nothing special. It looked clear and bright under good conditions, but we had some trouble with it. Specifically, it was impossible to use the LCD with our polarized sunglasses on. This is mostly the fault of our polarized lenses, such is the nature of polarization (not our favorite sunglasses design).
Otherwise, there were a few nice features built into the display. While it wasn't large or high resolution, we did like the way the display interface includes a sort of picture-in-picture preview option to check out the focal point at full zoom. So, while you're lining up your shot, or after it's taken, the camera automatically shows you if you're getting sharp details. This was especially helpful in macro mode.
Features - Good
For Canon, the features are all about color. The camera doesn't have a lot of manual controls, hardly any, in fact. Nor does it offer as many scene modes as we've seen on other cameras, such as the Casio EX-Z80. There is a rudimentary panorama stitching guide, but it wasn't as helpful as the robust panorama modes we've seen from Olympus. Instead, the Canon Powershot SD890 IS offers a wide range of options to tweak and adjust the color output for photographs. You can make some colors more vivid, or exclude all but a single color. You can emphasize foliage in scenery, or skin tones at a party. You can swap the blue in the sky for the green in the grass, to neat effect. Sure, you could handle most of these with Photoshop and some clever masking, but Canon makes it much easier, and the results can be quite stunning. Best of all, it was very fun to play with these modes, and we found ourselves taking more pictures, inspired by the many options.
For other shooting features, the Canon Powershot SD890 IS does have a burst mode, but shots come in at just under one per second, which is pretty slow. The camera uses optical image stabilization, which is the only way for us, and this seemed to work fairly well, as the camera helped us produce fewer blurry shots than normal. Scene modes are of the normal variety, including "Night Snapshot," "Kids & Pets," and "Fireworks" mode, as well as an "Aquarium" mode that has us curious enough to want to schedule a field trip. There are only 11 total, so don't expect specific shooting modes for "Food" or "Running Water" or the like, as we've seen elsewhere.
The Manual mode has hardly any real manual controls. There is a "Long Shutter" mode for shutter control, but the shortest setting is 1-second, going all the way up to 15-seconds if you want some real motion-blur effects. The camera lacks a user-controlled aperture- or shutter- priority mode, and the best manual mode can offer is ISO control. ISO ranges from 80 through 1600, with a special ISO 3200 mode that drops the resolution to about 2-megapixels.
Hardware Performance- Good
The camera went from powered down to first shot in about 1.5-seconds. This was nice, but there was a noticeable delay between shots, even with the photo review turned off, and it took a couple of seconds to shoot our second pic. We like the zoom ring around the shutter button, and the variable zoom had plenty of increments between the 37mm and 185mm equivalent focal lengths. We would have liked a wider aperture range, as the lens opens from a stop at f/3.2 to f/5.7 at the narrow end.
At this range, up to 185mm equivalent, the Canon Powershot SD890 IS actually packs a nice amount of zoom. We tried the camera at a large, outdoor music festival, and though we couldn't quite keep our hands steady enough for a truly sharp picture, from halfway back in the crowd we were able to capture the expressions of the performers on stage just fine. For close-up shots, perhaps because of the more narrow aperture range, the camera wasn't as good at producing the cool narrow depth-of-field shots we like, but detail at close range was still very good.
Image Quality - Good
The Canon Powershot SD890 IS took very good portrait shots, even under some challenging lighting conditions. As the light grew dim, we had more trouble with noise and fuzzy details in our pics, but the effect was never off-putting. At full zoom, the images could get quite blurry, which was disappointing considering this camera only manages about a 5X zoom, and doesn't venture into superzoom range, like the 18X Nikon P80. Also, at a fairly narrow 37mm equivalent, the camera doesn't offer the best wide-angle option. So, the casual size and shape, combined with the mid-range lens means this will be a good camera for casual, day-to-day use, but vacationers taking pictures of mountain ranges, or sports fans with bleacher seats should pass this one up.
Scene Test at Astor Place
This scene test looks very good. Colors are very clean and accurate, and the overall picture has a nice, bright look to it. The camera didn't explode the reds or orange colors too much, but we did notice some overexposure and fringing around the white parts. Check out the guy in the white shirt under the cube, you'll notice a purple aura around him. Of course, it was a very sunny day.
Full Zoom at a Concert
Thankfully, Bob Dylan doesn't move around too much, or we fear we wouldn't have gotten even this much detail out of his craggly expression. We were about halfway back in the crowd at Pimlico, and from this distance the details were still pretty hazy, but it's definitely good enough to prove to friends that we've seen Dylan live. There's plenty of noise in the black curtain in the background, and the facial tones are rendered a bit pink four our taste. Not good enough to hang on our wall, but definitely fine for remembering the show.
Tough Lighting in the Dance Tent
Tough shot, but it came out okay. Details on the stage are kind of fuzzy, with plenty of noise, but the camera did a nice job of separating the harsh backlighting from the LED curtain behind the performers.
Sunset, Full Zoom, with Fire
Considering the difficulty of this shot, the camera did a nice job. Sure, there's noise, but it was sunset and the camera was using a higher sensitivity level at ISO 800. We care much more about the lightning bolt and the fire than the zombies behind the fence, and those elements came out sharp.
Night Portrait and Stage Lighting
We're pretty happy with this over-the-head shot of Nine Inch Nails. Thanks to the intense stage lighting, the camera was able to select a low ISO of 200, so details were pretty good, and noise was kept to a minumum. Also, we're pleasantly surprised that there wasn't much blurring, probably thanks to the image stabilization, as it was difficult to stand perfectly still.
Candle Test at ISO 250
Candle Test at ISO 3200
We shot both of these pics with a tripod. The Canon SD890 includes a high-ISO 3200 mode that reduces the pixel count. Unfortunately, noise makes this image a real mess. You get more detail, even with the faster shutter speed (1/25 vs. 1/8 for the normal ISO), but we're not willing to make the sacrifice in image quality.
1-Second Stabilization Test
We tried holding the camera still, with both hands, for a full second, and after only a few shots we got one sharp enough to use. Notice, though, the barrel distortion which makes our straight keyboard look like its bending toward the center at the edges of the photo.
Gatorade Macro Test
Gatorade DigitalMacro Test
Here are two macro shots, taken using a tripod and our studio light tent. We would have liked to get much closer to the subject, we were about an inch away in the first pic. For the second picture, we tried the SD890's Digital Macro mode, which is sort of like digital zoom, but for macro use. It wasn't that bad, we didn't see the compression artifacts we expected from a digital zoom, but the details weren't very sharp, either.
Color Swap example
Color Accent example
We had loads of fun playing with these modes. For the color swap, we switched blue with the red in the Virgin sign on the stage. For the accent, we started with the yellow in the woman's dress. It was very easy to choose the colors we wanted to play with. In the color accent, we would have liked to turn the whole lemon in the cup yellow, and we could have done so by adjusting the range of the color accent feature. Our mistake, not the camera's.
Panorama
Panorama stitching is pretty disappointing on the Canon SD890 IS. The camera uses a standard setup, where you get to see about a quarter of the previous picture while you are lining up the subsequent shots. Unfortunately, this part of the screen wasn't translucent, it was opaque, so it was harder to line up shots accurately. Then, the camera also holds onto the exposure settings for the first picture you take. In this sample, we went left to right, so the camera exposed for the darker buildings on the left, which means the right side was completely blown out. Finally, the stitching is not done in camera, you have to use the included software. It worked well, and there was no limit to how many pictures you could stitch into one giant image, but we prefer the stitching to be done in-camera.
Transfer and Storage - Very Good
It wasn't the included software that impressed us. We found nothing wrong with Canon's setup, it was pretty average, and will be fine for most novice users who don't already have a photo organization program in place. What we especially liked, though, is how intelligent the actual camera itself was when it came to transferring pictures. The camera can group pictures for you on the memory card, depending on which scene mode you are using. It also knows to transfer only new images, if you handle the transfer process from the camera itself. For memory, the camera comes with a 32MB memory card, which is still pretty small, but we've seen cameras that come with 8MB, so it wasn't too bad. The Canon Powershot SD890 IS accepts SDHC cards, and it had no trouble with our 8GB test card.
Price and availability
The Canon Powershot SD890 IS is available now online for around $300.
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