For those with a taste for adventure, there’s a camera as bold as the active life you lead. It’s the Canon PowerShot D10. Waterproof, freeze-proof and shockproof; it’s tough enough to take what you dish out. Plus it’s got all the high performance features you expect from a Canon digital camera. You’ve got 12.1 megapixels of resolution plus all of Canon’s powerful, state of the art imaging technologies so you can capture your epic experiences in breathtaking color and awesome detail. PowerShot D10 Highlights Take this camera anywhere: waterproof, cold resistant and shockproof Life can take you almost anywhere. So Canon engineered a digital camera durable enough to go where you go and produce the kind of awe-inspiring images that will earn your respect. It’s the PowerShot D10 and it’s no ordinary digital camera. This unique camera is waterproof down to 33 feet so you can take it scuba diving, snorkeling or surfing. It’s freeze proof and can (more…)
5.0 out of 5 stars
Underwater video
one of the things that I did not see anyone talk about in reviews was the video mode for underwater use.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Steller Camera (with perks)
INTRO
I had just purchased an amazing Olympus Stylus 1010 (7x optical zoom was amazing) a few months back and was very pleased.
I’ve been playing with my new Powershot D10 for about a week and really like it. I have been using Canon SLRs for 25+ years, AE1 Program, A1, Elan 7e, and Digital Rebel. When I started looking for a waterproof camera to take snorkeling, my first choice was Canon, based on my many years of satisfaction with their products, and I was very lucky that this camera was released two weeks before leaving for vacation. (Amazon had been showing the camera as available for pre-order until earlier today. I purchased mine from a local camera store.)
I’m very impressed with the picture quality on this camera. The 12 megapixel sensor, coupled with a dozen shooting modes, produce an excellent image. I’m used to controlling aperture and shutter speed on the SLR, so simply selecting “portrait” or “night exposure” mode and letting the camera do all the work just seems too easy. Or, if selecting “portrait” is too difficult, you can select “auto” and just let the camera do it all. Movie quality is also quite good. The LCD screen on the back of the camera seems huge compared to the 1″ screen on my old Digital Rebel. It’s a great display.
The controls are conveniently arranged, and easy to use, and the associated icons displayed are both informative and intuitive. You can choose to display all the settings or turn them off and just see the image. One of the useful display options is a grid overlay on the screen to assist with shot composition and the “Rule of Thirds.” The optical zoom works great. By the time you get to 12x with the digital zoom, the image is kind of grainy, but that’s to be expected.
You can take macro photographs an inch or two from your subject. I’ve had trouble focusing my Digital Rebel in the dark, but Canon seems to have improved low-light focusing quite a bit. It has a manual focus feature that indicates the distance to the subject as you adjust the focus, just in case it can’t get the focus right.
I like the Panorama feature, which displays the previous shot on the viewfinder while you’re composing the next shot, allowing the photographer to closely match subsequent shots, resulting in panoramic photos with less distortion when they’re stitched together. Panorama mode also locks in the exposure value of the first shot so that the exposure in subsequent shots all match the first shot.
The face recognition and blink detection both seem to work well. As the camera focuses, it will zoom in on one of the faces so the photographer can verify correct focus. After the shot is taken, if someone blinked it will identify the face of the person blinking so you can take another shot. These can be turned on or off according to user preference. Images seem very crisp, which I attribute to the image stabilization features, which can also be turned on or off.
I’ve had the camera in the sink, and it handles six inches of water with no problems. I’ll see how it does with thirty two and a half more feet of water when it meets the Atlantic Ocean in a few weeks! The wrist strap attaches to any one of the four corners of the camera (convenient for carrying in either left or right hand) and seems to be pretty secure, so no worries about losing it if you get knocked over by a wave.
I use Photoshop Elements, so I haven’t loaded the Canon software and can’t comment on that. And since I edit photos on the computer, I doubt that I’ll use some of the in-camera editing features, such as black and white, sepia, color swap, and the various color enhancements. I could see that would be useful to those who print directly from the camera, without editing on a computer.
The camera doesn’t allow you to shoot in RAW. I generally don’t shoot in RAW with my SLR, so that doesn’t worry me. It has a number of white balance modes, custom white balance, and auto white balance. It seems to do a good job selecting the correct shooting conditions in auto mode. Colors appear correct.
A couple of drawbacks: The camera isn’t threaded so you’re not able to attach filters. There’s also no lens cap, and I worry about the lens surface getting damaged. For a rugged “adventure” camera, I’m also surprised that there’s no GPS chip so that photos can be tagged with the exact location. I look at old slides taken while I was hiking and think “that’s neat, why can’t I remember where I took that.” It would be nice if the EXIF data included lattitude and longitude. (Watch Canon come out with the Powershot D10 “Gold” six months from now that incorporates these features. The curse of being an early adopter.)
The microphone picks up every movement your fingers make as you hold the camera, so it’s difficult to capture movies without some camera noise. The speaker on the bottom of the camera is also difficult to hear when playing movies back on the camera, but movies sounds fine when I pop the memory chip into the computer and watch in Quicktime. Movies are produced in the .mov format, so you’ll have to do some conversion if you want to do anything with it in Windows Movie Maker. You can also choose between higher quality 640 x 480, or lower quality 320 x 240. (I should post a video review, but look like a dork in movies, so I’ll spare everybody that.)
Tried to take a few infrared photos, but the image has the Hot Spot typical of many Canon cameras and lenses. I held a Hoya R72 filter over the lens and took several shots. Bright sunlight is about a 4″ exposure, and all shots have a bluish circle in the center.
The drawbacks are very minor compared to the great images this camera produces.
I’m very impressed with this camera. It feels very sturdy, takes great photos, and seems very easy to use. Although I’ll probably continue to use my Digital Rebel as my primary camera, I certainly look forward to many years of fun with this camera.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best All Around Camera
I bought this camera for my trip to Maui, which I just came back from. This camera took great land and water photos.
I’ve had this camera for about a week and am very pleased with the results so far. It’s very easy to use and takes great pictures. I love the color adjustments available in the Program mode and I like the useful special scene modes. Colors seem true to life and resolution is excellent. It also starts up within about a second or less. I took one of my best pictures ever on Memorial Day and am looking forward to taking many more in the future. The only thing I really miss on this camera is a function to control the flash output (available on my older PowerShot A620) and a lenscap would have been nice.
I tested this camera in my pool. If you do not like the blue pictures in the underwater mode, this is a great camera ot you can switch to auto mode and it you will get the blue.
I also took pictures on land and the colors are vivid. Seems like a typical Canon which takes excellent shots. I looked at the Olympus Tough, Optio W60 and this camera and I chose this one hands down.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great underwater AND general purpose camera
I bought this camera for a trip to St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. I originally acquired it to take underwater pictures, since I own a nikon D40 with a 18-200 mm lens for…
4.0 out of 5 stars
Would look elsewhere next time…
I bought this camera sight unseen.. I needed a compact waterproof camera that took magazine quality shots.. I love the product..
4.0 out of 5 stars
Finally, a “full service” waterproof camera for all those fun-filled vacations, let the kids go crazy!
So many of our family’s vacations are at beaches, lakes, water-parks, or hikes and bringing along the sensitive digital camera has always been a problem.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great camera for hikers!
I bought my D10 from a local camera store in Boulder, CO near our home. I also picked up the Accessories Kit (AKT-DC1).
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very Good Camera
I ‘m vey impressed with this camera . It took prety sharp picture , vivid color . I also try some of Preset program : Portrait , Landscape, Kid & Pet , Night Snap Shot , Beach…
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent for all-around outdoor use
The Canon D10 is a very versatile camera. It is small and surprisingly light. The build quality is excellent; the camera is manufactured in Japan.
1.0 out of 5 stars
No Lens Cover: Major Design Flaw
are you kidding me? this camera is marketed for rugged outdoor use, but canon let the most delicate part of the camera unprotected. major design flaw.