Today I took my new lil’ Canon Camera out for it’s inaugural trip to the Delta. While there, I ran into an issue that I wasn’t sure was really an issue, or was something that I was doing wrong or thinking about incorrectly. But I felt it was an issue. I believed there to be an issue. I thought there was probably an issue at issue.

The issue? As I closed in on the limits of the zoom, the camera would – for some odd reason – underexpose the image mercilessly. If I backed off a smidgeon, then suddenly the image was bright and shiny. This didn’t strike me as intended behavior, and the more I thought about it the more frustrated I became, because it’s not like it couldn’t change the settings to acquire the necessary light sensitivity for the scene. We’re outdoors. In the middle of the day. It’s not like there’s a shortage of light, so what gives? It’s just not setting the aperture & shutter speeds correctly.

In my estimation, there’s something wrong with the “brains” of the machine. At full-zoom, it’s not calculating the exposure settings correctly, and it “thinks” that this too-dark scene it’s creating is proper. I called tech support over the issue, but they were very unhelpful and thought that maybe the camera itself was a lemon. Perhaps, but it’s not like it doesn’t take decent pictures otherwise, so that tells me that the parts are working correctly, but the fact that under this once circumstance (outside, close to full zoom), the “brains” aren’t computing correctly. This, then, is an SD870 issue, not a “random bob's SD870” issue. The brains in mine are the same brains in every other SD870. So I rule the lemon excuse is just that: an excuse.

So? Well the issue has already been solved as I write this. I contacted amazon.com – where I purchased it – and set up a return/refund for the defective camera. And I also went ahead and ordered a copy of The Girl’s camera but in silver (we’ll be switching as I like the black highlights of hers – I’m bigger, so I win). Overnighted it.

No, again I’m not that impatient. But with that free amazon prime membership still in effect, it cost me a whopping $4. Wow. Yeah I’ll take that overnighted, please. Thanks.



Why not go bigger?
Someone had posed the question of why I don’t go up the line a little bit here as I was sort of underwhelmed by the additional features of the SD870. Obviously I did the exact opposite and went down the line instead. Why?

Because price-wise, the SD870 was where I drew the line in the sand. Any more than that, to acquire any more features, and suddenly it becomes “so why did I sell my DSLR again?” I want good-enough photos with the least hassle. I wasn’t getting much more out of the SD870 than I could have gotten out of The Girl’s SD1000, so it just made sense to save the ~$140 and have a camera that I could take about the same pictures with anyway. Yeah, it’s not “Wide-Angle,” nor is it “Image-Stabilized,” but I can overcome those obstacles. And save ~$140 in the process.



Works out for the best, really
This was about the best way it could all go down, actually. Had the camera not failed miserably, I of course would have kept it. But the pictures I would have gotten with it would not have been that much better – if any – than the pictures The Girl gets out of hers. So yeah, it’s got some niceties, but worthy of an extra $150? Probably not.

This way, though, I have gotten to experience what that $150 was supposed to give me. And I am now able to say, with no hesitation, that it’s just not worth it. No second-guessing, I know for sure. The SD1000, while lacking in the IS department, is about the same camera as its overpriced brethren, but without the marketing talk surrounding it. Clearly a dark-horse.

I think I may like Dark Horses or something. Seems to be a trend for me.



Technical Jargon
For those that found this entry via a google search & understand camera-speak, here’s the deal for you -

It’s rated as a film 35mm equivalent of 28mm-105mm lens. If you frame a scene outdoors, zoomed to about 80mm, when you frame and set, the camera will set the aperture & shutter properly to create a decent, well-rounded exposure. However, once you zoom in on the scene to some value beyond this, say 90mm or more, even though hardly a thing has changed, when you press the button, the camera will do it’s thinking, and come up with a picture that is severely underexposed. This only seems to be an issue with under-exposure under these circumstances: Full-zoom or near those limits, on an outdoor scene. If you’re indoors, it will create a proper exposure. But the outdoor scenes, where you’d expect that if anything it’d be overexposed, rather the camera’s innards seem to be almost overcompensating for the excess light, and simply going too far with its algorithms, creating a severely underexposed frame. I cannot comment on whether it affects just the IS models, just the SD870, or anything else, only that compared to the SD1000 we already own, it’s just not up to snuff in these circumstances. I’m going with what I know, I guess, and getting an additional SD1000. Something’s up with the SD870, it’s bad, not good at all, and I don’t feel like being Canon’s guinea pig in figuring this out.

Anyway,

Peace.

Tags: Technology