Great performance and image quality, solid image stabilization & face detection make this camera one of the best in the market. The not so good things about it however is that it has no manual exposure controls, as well as has on/off button a bit awkward besides having noisy images at ISO 1,600. Nonetheless all photographers will agree in unison that this camera has just about everything you’d want in a point-and-shoot. The camera is a digital camera which is compact has a resolution of 8 megapixels and an Optical zoom of 4.

The Canon Powershot SD850 IS replaces the SD700 IS (IXUS 800 IS). What is a distinguishing technology about this camera is that it features an eight megapixel 1/2.5″ (5.8 x 4.3 mm) CCD sensor mated to a four times optical zoom lens. Add to that a compact metal body and features like optical Image Stabilization, a 2.5″ “Pure Color” LCD monitor and face detection for optimizing AF, exposure and flash and for sure you will have to agree that this is one of the best digital cameras that the market can offer. In Canon Powershot SD850 IS face Detection can also be used in playback mode for red-eye removal. In fact this camera has a 1 frame per second ’spy camera mode’.

The camera has a design that is similar to the SD700 IS. The only real difference is the colors that adorn its body. The on/off button is in an awkward place and is also rather small and completely flushes with the camera back. Images from the camera are very impressive as in them not only the colours look accurate but there’s plenty of sharpness, especially for a compact camera, and at its lowest ISO settings there is no appreciable noise.

However it must be noted that at this camera’s highest sensitivity setting of ISO 1,600, most finer detail is obliterated by noise, and lots of shadow detail is lost. At this sensitivity we see that the noise becomes larger and causes a nasty blotchy look overall. Therefore it is best used below ISO 1,600.