The Best Canon Point & Shoot on the market today,

I've owned many Canon cameras from my first film ones when I was younger to the SLR AE before going digital. The first of those was a huge mistake, on the advice of a friend I got a Point & Shoot Olympus which I managed to give to my brother in law and then went back to my favorite manufacturer. That was an SD400 and it served really well even though it's optical zoom really didn't zoom much and video was mono but it was great at concerts because it was so small, no security guard ever found it in my purse! Then, wanting better I moved on to the S5IS which took great photos & stereo video. This was in the days just before HD so it did produce 4:3 output but it was certainly good at it and the photos (with it's 12x optical zoom) were superb. For those times when only a DSLR will do I have the Rebel XSI and a couple of extra lenses and a SpeedLite flash unit (EX 300). Of course I got the last but one DSLR that doesn't do video but that's always the case. This year we ventured further and got the SD3500 for the small camera essential times and just before Black Friday I picked up the SX30IS at a real bargain. The real bugbear of the S5 as far as I was concerned was those 4 x AA batteries; even if you use rechargeables you always have to carry spares and carrying st least 8 in my purse created weight I didn't need. ALL the other Canons used small squarish gray units and a very compact recharged so my purse is now happy again. All the photos so far have been great & the HD video is even better. As with the S5, the strap could be thicker, like the one the Rebel uses, I find the thin one cuts into my neck. And FINALLY Canon seem to have solved the dreadful issue of the lens cap falling off usually as inappropriate moments! 35x optical zoom is awesome & I cannot wait to take it to concerts. Most venues now say cameras are OK but not professional. I've always gone by the rule that professional cameras are ones that have intercheable lenses (like the Rebel & Canon's wonderful but unaffordable for me) EOS range, so that gets it past security. I think most venues have decided that confiscating phones with cameras could be detrimental to their security guards' health (having several hundred iPhones/Smartphones to return to the right owners wouldn't be an easy task) so they are a little more forgiving to the venue patrons) so I can't wait for my next concert or day trip.

BY: CariM