Canon PowerShot SD880IS 10MP Digital Camera (Gold) - Review

Last year, Canon SD870IS camera was a winner in the SD series and the SD880IS manages to offer even more at a lower starting price (than that of SD870IS last year).
>>>What's NEW?
--New DIGIC 4 technology, up from DIGIC 3 which tries to improve the camera performance in low light and at higher ISO - is it successful? I noted a slight improvement in some shots.
- Updated face detection technology. It helps the camera create better contrast for faces and does not bleach out all color from the faces in a shot. The Face Detection Self Timer is new, so if you want to take a group shot including yourself all you have to do is focus the camera on the group and then walk into the group. The camera will detect a new face and click the shot.
- A BIGGER CCD - 1/2.3" up from the previous 1/2.5" in the SD870 which allows for increase in MPs to 10MP (up from 8MP of SD870)
- 4X Zoom (up from 3.8X on SD870) and a wide angle which really helps with shots at close quarters (in a car/bus, of a large group etc.)
- Motion Detection is also new. On this mode the camera allows you to focus on a moving object or person by pressing the shutter half-way and then click the shot even though the object/person continued to move across the frame. Earlier, you would have got a motion blur if you tried to take the same picture
- The huge 3 inch LCD screen is the same as the SD870 but slightly improved technology gives you brighter playback in low-light which makes it easier to see the shots in replay. It does not have a viewfinder but I have never missed the viewfinder on my SD870 since Canon made the screen anti-glare. I'd take a bigger screen any day over a 2.5 inch screen with a viewfinder, but if you like to use the viewfinder to compose your shots you might need to look at the SD990 IS and drop another 100 bucks.
- Updated Scene Modes. It gives you the standard Canon modes like before: Auto, Manual, Digital, Color Accent (you can pick a color to retain in the shot and the rest of the picture will be black and white), Color Swap (swap a color in the pic for another) and Stitch Assist (take a panoramic pic by stitching together many shots).
The SD880 IS makes some additions to the special scene modes like Sunset and ISO 3200. The rest remain the same: Portrait, Foliage, Snow, Beach, Fireworks, Aquarium, Underwater, Indoor, Kids & Pets, Night Snapshot. I really like the special scene modes and use them extensively. According to Canon they are based on their library of shots and I agree that they really work very well to give me great pictures.