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Can anyone explain Canon SD "families" to me?

M

Mide

Golden Member
So back in 2006 I bought a Canon SD700IS and it has been the cornerstone of dependability, quality, and shooting speed, so much so that I have not needed to upgrade in all these years.

In 2008 my dad wanted to dive into digital cameras and I told him to just get one of the SD Powershots and he would be OK. Well he ended up getting a Canon SD1100IS and its performance has been dismal. The main negative is that it has a very slow shooting speed. I looked it up and it turns out that it is a few seconds slower than the 700.

1.8 sec (w/700) vs 3.2 sec (w/1100) with the flash on. The second issue is that the image quality is highly lacking. In some pics, there will be a purple outline surrounding a person's head. It only happens sometimes and in lower-light conditions.

So fast forward to today. My dad only takes pics of his grandchildren and I can attest to the fact that kids are very fast and move quickly. It is important that pictures can be taken at the speed of my 700 or better. So as a Christmas gift, which SD should I go for? I looked on Wiki and saw that there seemed to be different naming conventions that might designate a different class/family of SD Powershots

So which would be the "newest" version of my old school SD700IS? Or an explanation of the different families would be helpful. Currently the SD1400IS is on sale for a good price but I have a feeling that it is just an upgraded version of the SD1100IS and if so I'll pass on that.
 
The SD1400 IS is not going to give you an noticeable increase in shooting speed or image quality.

It seems like you want fast shooting performance and good image quality. If that's the case and you want to stick with Canon, you will need to pay more for the Powershot S90 or S95.
 
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I have to agree - Canon's numbering scheme is confusing as hell. What's worse is sometimes an older model actually performs better because they have the same sensor size in the newer model(s) but they cram more megapixels in there. Case in point: Canon Powershot S45 vs S40.
 
SD3500 is great cuz it's wide (24mm)
SD4000 is great cuz it's fast (f/2.0)
SD4500 is great cuz it's 10x zoom

take ur pick 😛

SD3500 - 24–120 mm (5&#215😉 f/2.8–5.9 - 14MP - 3.5" lcd touch - 460k pixels
SD4000 - 28–105 mm (3.8&#215😉 f/2.0–5.3 - 10MP - 3.0" lcd - 230k pixels
SD4500 - 36-360 mm (10.0&#215😉 f/3.4-5.6 - 10MP - 3.0" lcd - 230k pixels

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Digital_IXUS
 
get the s95 and don't look back. i went from an SD750IS to a G11, but got my parents the S90 that i steal from time to time and it is awesome
 
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