Canon Reviews

Why isn't the purchaser informed the camera comes without a battery? It's the first camera I have ever purchased which required a battery and wasn't delivered with one. Because of this I am not able to rate this camera.
I have tried to turn the camera on to no avail. My wife also was unable to turn the camera on. So, we have presumed the camera has no battery. Neither of us were able to open the battery compartment to verify the absence of a battery because evidently neither of us has the required strength to do this. I shall take this to a camera store sometime this week to check the camera out. I placed a roll of film in the camera but nothing happened when I closed the case. The film was not taken up. The number "1" did not appear on the screen indicating the camera was ready for action. What more can I say???

When we went shopping for a camera to replace our current one, this is the one that we came across. My brother even has the same camera and he loves it. We did research and found that it had everything that we needed until upon receiving the camera, we found that it doesn't have the date caption that we thought that it did. There are two different models of this camera, one says caption and one doesn't. We had seen the one with caption at many other stores and didn't realize that there was a model without a caption. It is a great camera, unless the date caption is an important feature for your family.

Great Camera for the price. It's simple and compact which makes it easy to point and shoot. I would have given it five stars but it came without battery. Overall very satisfied.

While I agree that the binoculars can be adjusted to fit different individuals the range of adjustment is too small and will NOT accomodate some women and alsmost all children.

I also have the Zeiss image stabilized 20x60 binoculars, which run about $5000, and the comparison is interesting. First, the Canon eats batteries, and I've tried using lithiums which are much more expensive, without much improvement, so take a set of alkalines along on field trips. The Zeiss does not use batteries, but it will take a while for those savings to balance the cost difference! Second, the Canons won't stabilize in a rough sea; the Zeiss will. (So will the noisy gyro-driven Yamahas, by the way.) Third, the Canons give a rock solid image with fresh batteries; the Zeiss only give an easily readable image, but of course it is 20x instead of 12x. Fourth, the Zeiss weigh a ton, the Canons are easy to carry. Fifth, obviously, the field of view of the Zeiss is considerably less than that of the Canons. However, it's pretty good for a 20x; it's a portable scope without the need for a tripod. Both are easy to use for the complete techno-handicapped.

Against the best of the standard binox, the Nikon Super E and the Leicas, which I also have, the gains are terrific for most but not all purposes; e.g., the twilight performance of the stabized binox, with their limited 3mm exit pupil, is notably inferior, and the weight is less handy. But on balance, the 12x Canon is great!

I was lucky - I found a nearly new used one on eBay, cheap.

Image-stabilized binocs are incredible. You won't believe the extra detail you can see. Need that little bit of detail on feather or bill for that rare bird ID? Does that bull elk half a mile off have a rack worthy of an extended stalk? The astronomy crowd touts them because those faint photons saturate the same cells in your retina, giving better images than giant binocs.

They're not exactly light or compact, but they beat carrying a spotting scope and tripod, hands down. Battery goes dead? 123 batteries aren't all that big - carry extras. You can find them for a buck apiece or less online. I use my 12x36's all the time and I get a month or more out of a battery.

See also my review of the Canon 8X25's

RB

If you want to get a quick idea why image stabilization (IS) is the next revolution in binoculars, that's easy: take any binoculars that you can get and look through them at some object (a printed page of paper with several font sizes is ideal). Then look again at the same object from the same distance, but this time with the binoculars moudnted on a steady support (don't touch em!). You will notice that the actual resolution increases by a factor of at least 2 or 3 when mounted. That is, you can discern details that are at least two or three times smaller, because mounting eliminates the smear caused by the shaking of your hands. IS is like having this support available any time and anywhere you need it by a push of a button! In most conditions, the practical resolutions I can get with my Canon IS cannot be matched by any hand-held, unstabilized binoculars in the market, including those fancy Nikons, Swarovskis, Leicas and Zeiss that cost three or four times as much. No matter how good (and how expensive) is the optics of these top-of-the-line binoculars, their limiting factor in the field is the shaking of your hands. You may have heard that IS is important because it eliminates eyestrain and headaches, or because you can use the binoculars from a boat or a moving car. While these are good reasons to buy the Canon, the best reason is that they let you see much more detail in any given distance. And this is the reason why you buy binoculars in the first place.

If you are a birder like me, and you are looking for a top of the line binoculars, do not buy anything before you try this one. In my opinion IS is going to revolutionize the whole field, so a costly pair of Swarovski or Zeiss, that normally could be considered as a good investment for life, will not be top of the line anymore in two or three years. In addition to the IS, the Canon has quite good optics, good field of view and is much smaller and lighter then most models you probably considered. This makes the Canon very close to the ideal birding binoculars: Highest resolution, less weight, and less money. I did not have the opportunity to test the larger Canon IS models, but I don't think I'd buy them even if I had the money, because they are twice as heavy and (very important for birding) has smaller field of view.

Note one general disadvantage of the Canon, however: They are not as tough as the top roof prism binoculars. They are water resistant but not water proof, and the IS requires batteries (a pair of NiMH for several hours of birding. This is the digital camera procedure: get a charger and at least one replacement set). While the binoculars feel sturdy, dropping them is not good for the IS mechanism, and this is probably why Canon gives only one year warranty. So the Canon are not the best pair to take for an expedition in Alaska, but for a Sunday birder like me, these are easily the best in their price range, and probably the best in any price.

This is the first binocular that allows me to move up to 10X magnification & not feel eye strain. I can focus on tiny details without my brain hurting from the movement. I had the opportunity to do a side by side comparison with a pair of Leica 10X binocs. & the Canon optics were VERY close. The stable image made the difference though. At night I can look at the moon & see so much more than ever before. The Canon IS binoculars are a totally unique viewing experience. Really, they're that good!

Although expensive, my experience trying the 10x30 with Image Stabilizer from Canon in a store was unbelievable
At the push of a button the image was rock steady allowing to finally see near diffraction-limited details, this in my hands! I could read signs at the other end of the room. I never thought IS correction could be so effective. And optics are great anyway, even with no IS.

I give it a 5 star (even if the 10X is a bit week, a zoom module would help, and there is no dig camera inside!).

This binocular or rather technology is definitely a revolution, like color TV was to black and white TV. Forget about your other binoculars (unless they are IS too)!

Note: Are they going to install the same technology on a conference laser pointer so even after a cup of coffee the spot is rock steady?

I use these mainly while I'm hiking, they're fairly light, they fold up nicely, the focus is smooth and quick, and they're made by Canon. For you techheads, the technical specs on Amazon.com don't say, but the exit pupil is 2.5mm. They have a cord/strap attached to them, and it is NOT removable, just an FYI. And another note, these aren't waterproof. They also come boxed from the factory with a soft/padded carrying case which attaches nicely to a belt.

This paper is wonderful. Looks better or as good as Kodak real photo processing. Can't tell the difference from real photos from ones printed on this paper on a Canon i860 printer.

Tried Kodak paper for printing and prints looked washed out... even in Best quality mode using Kodak or Canon software. Printing in normal mode, default printing, photos come out beautiful on the Canon paper using the Canon Easy Photo Print.

This paper is astonishing. I have used it in several inkjet printers and being an amature photographer I can honestly say that I can see a difference every time on every printer.I personally own a bjc-8200 and when i scan a negative in on my epson 2450 scanner and print it out on the Photo Paper Pro that it looks better than the 4x6 lab prints I get back from my local pro shop. enough said...it's the best paper I have ever used {and I've used alot of them}..period.

I have been using this paper with my Canon i850. Until I bought this paper, I had seen nothing that produced such amazing clarity, sharpness, and preservation of highlights. There is absolutely no grain. The paper has no tackiness when it comes out of the printer and the print surface is absolutely smooth (some papers produce a kind of outline of the objects in the picture which you can see when you hold the picture so that there's a glare across the surface). The whites are very bright and clean, and the blacks are perfect.

In printing out a number of my photos, I noticed that the paper has some trouble reproducing very saturated emerald greens. This bothered me, as I do a lot of landscape photography of very green places like Scotland and Maine. I did a print test using several of my pictures and six different photo paper stocks: Canon Photo Paper Pro, Kodak Ultima Picture Paper, and four Ilford stocks: Classic Gloss, Classic Pearl, Smooth Gloss and Smooth Pearl. I discovered that of the 6 stocks, the Canon paper and the Ilford Smooth papers were the best. The Kodak Ultima and the Ilford Classic papers all had two immediately obvious disadvantages: they were tacky for some time after printing, and there was grain in the black areas.

The Canon paper is perhaps the slightest bit better at reproducing tiny details. Its bright whites are whiter than the Ilford Smooth whites. Its highlights are more sharply rendered than the Ilford Smooth highlights... but only marginally so. The Ilford Smooth produces deep, magnificent greens and richer reds, and renders faint pastel blues and greens faithfully instead of letting them fall off to white or gray like the Canon paper. So there are advantages to both, and I imagine which paper is best depends on what kind of picture you are printing. I will still use both papers, but I do really like the fact that the Ilford Smooth Gloss paper can be purchased in 25, 100, or 250 page packs, and costs between 43¢ and 60¢ a page instead of the Canon paper's 80¢ per page. You should try them both!

Used it with my Canon i960 printer and Digital Rebel.
Prints are stunning. Couldn't ask for more. Printed the same pictures on Kodak inkjet paper, and the Canon blew the Kodak paper away.