At this point, I’ve probably tested close to a dozen digicams and, while they’ve all been fun to use, only a few have stood out to be “actually good”. This Powershot is one of those.
I picked it up a couple months ago and have dragged it along with me around the city, to a wedding (as a guest, not a main photographer, don’t worry!), and on a brutal hiking trip. Let’s dive in and I’ll share my impressions and sample photos of this cute little camera.
Size/Build
Alright, so chances are if you’re reading this, you’re probably well aware that one of the biggest strengths of a digicam is that it’s just so darn tiny. This thing is in fact smaller than my phone (maybe not quite as thin, but dimensionally otherwise is smaller).
I absolutely love that I can just pop this thing into my pocket. It’s as portable as my phone but doesn’t have all the distractions. It can take decent pictures, but I don’t stress about breaking it like I would my legit pro setup.
Build quality wise, I really don’t think it would survive a drop onto concrete (not that I’m about to test that theory…), but it definitely doesn’t feel as flimsy and crappy as a Kodak or Vivitar, for example.
Aesthetically, it’s cute AF. I mean, it’s a digicam. It’s compact, shiny, and looks charming. I couldn’t care less about the TikTok hype around these things but I can totally understand where it comes from. Either way, you don’t need to read me rant about the aesthetics of a camera… you can just see what it looks like with your own eyes.
Usability
Some digicams suck to use, they’re slow, glitchy, unresponsive, etc. but not this little guy. While there is a TINY bit of shutter lag (when compared to something like an actual full-frame camera), it’s pretty minor and totally excusable in my opinion.
I’d say it takes about the same amount of time to power this thing on and take a picture as it would to turn on your phone and hit the camera shortcut.
Buttons are all pretty snappy and responsive, and I really like to simplistic and smooth the menu is to navigate. If I had anything to criticize, the function menu (ie. where you can adjust self-timer, drive mode, etc.) plays an unnecessarily slow animation when switching between settings. My video linked at the beginning shows that a bit more accurately than text can portray.
Autofocus is fairly accurate during daytime and I didn’t find I had any missing shots. In the dark, however, it seems to falter a good bit. I wouldn’t say I had a crazy amount of missed focus especially compared to some digicams, but it was definitely happening on occasion.
Image Quality
As far as image quality goes, it’s actually not too bad! In daylight, I’d say photos look about as good as a mid-tier phone (I have the base S23 for comparison) but the dynamic range (the dark vs light parts of an image ie. sunset/shooting into the sun) is a bit lacking in comparison.
The camera does have 8x optical zoom and frankly I found the quality greatly falls apart as you zoom in. At full 8x zoom, everything just looks a bit mushier and has a weird bloom effect (some might think this is nostalgic lol).
My absolute favorite part of shooting with this thing is flash! I’m not going to sit here and pretend the flash photos are “good”, per se, but they definitely nail a certain aesthetic. As a dude in my late 20s, flash photos with this camera look literally straight out of my childhood, I love it.
Note: if you look closely at the flash images below, you'll see a faint vertical white line through the center. I assume this shows up due the small lens scratch on my copy. I don't believe this is normal.
Should you buy it?
Ok, but should you actually buy this thing? If you’re looking to actually get into and practice photography, then no, this isn’t a “serious” camera and you’ll be better off grabbing a Canon DSLR (a used T3i for example) for the same price.
However, if you are in fact in the market for a cute little digicam and love the aesthetic, then yes! As I mentioned, I’ve played with a lot of digicams at this point, and I can confidently say this one is probably one of my favorites (up there with the Sony DSC-W830).
You can technically buy this little camera on either Amazon or eBay, but I’d highly recommend eBay as you’ll pay a bit less and likely get a better product (Amazon usually sucks for buying used camera gear). I’ll drop an affiliate link below which supports the website. Thank you for reading!
Check prices <— affiliate link, which means I get a (very) tiny commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!