One of the most sought-after series of Digicams for the current wave of Digicam hype is currently is the Canon Powershot ELPH series. I reviewed one of these back in February which was the last ELPH camera Canon ever made the ELPH 190.
Canon Powershot ELPH cameras are by a long shot not the best pocket sized Digital camera you can buy. They are small, slim pocket cameras that were designed to be affordable and as simple to shoot as possible, giving you no full manual control mode and making even altering exposure in P mode a bit of a hassle with having to dig in a quick menu to set it. That said, they are pretty typical for Consumer-focused pocket cameras and maybe that is the reason they are so sought after.
The most likely reason that Canon ELPHs are being over hyped and the focus of "influencer tax" (IE cameras that once were available at Garage Sales for under $10) is because of their boxy polished metal design. Good luck finding this camera under $80-90 USD now.
Some ELPH models like the Canon Powershot ELPH SD1000 currently fetch upwards of $200 USD with earlier models that were right on the transition of this "boxy metal shape" like the camera I am reviewing here still fetching upwards of $80-150 on E-Bay and used camera stores/swap meets/other auction sites (IE Goodwill).
My SD630 isn't in the best of shape physically so it wouldn't fetch a top tier collector price, but hey it works and I paid $7 for a fully working Digicam five years ago in 2018. A feat which today is nearly impossible today especially for a "popular Digicam Influencer camera" like this unless you find someone selling one at a garage sale or flea market who does not follow said trends.
Its a very strange phenomenon and there are certainly much better small Digicams that can still be purchased for a lot less like the Canon S90.
Released in 2006 the Canon Powershot ELPH SD630 is a very basic point and shoot camera. It has a fairly standard 1/2.5" 6mp CCD sensor with a fairly weak to average for a compact point and shoot 3x optical zoom.
The camera has a nice weight to it and non-plasticy feel to it thanks to a metal front plate; which would become an all metal finish in mid generation Canon ELPH series cameras before being reverted to an all plastic shell again to make the cameras smaller and lighter.
As I mentioned before, the all metal ELPHs are the ones commanding the highest prices, and the SD630 fits squarely in the transitional phase to the all metal square box ELPH camera.
Outside of that, this camera operates pretty much as any other more basic Digicam and gives you the nice bright colors of Canon's CCD sensor. Startup and shutdown time is good, battery life is also pretty solid so I have no complaints there. But aside from the build and colors from the Canon CCD sensor is about where my desire to use this camera end.
An interesting bit of Trivia is the early ELPH cameras all had a fixed variable aperture lens. The camera always shot with the lens wide open and used a variable built in ND filter over the sensor to "simulate" the amount of light a tighter aperture would let through.
What's more even more wild is that it will bake the "simulated" aperture value into the Metadata when you take the photo so when you review it on the camera or bring it into an editor of choice the Metadata will say that the image is taken at F11 for example when it was still taken at the widest the lens could shoot with the ND filter in effect to emulate a F11 stop.
Overall the lens on this camera is okay. It is not the sharpest, and does have a good amount of distortion in the wide angle which is most noticeable from smearing in the middle to outer edges of the captured frame which is most noticeable in Landscape photos taken with it.
Like a lot of early Canon ELPH cameras (the 190 does not have this issue) the SD630 has an extremely fickle Autofocus system. And this is its major drawback and Achilles Heel. The lens will make a number of minute adjustments as the half stage shutter is pressed before locking focus and taking a picture, which you can both hear and feel when using this camera.
Often times this camera will not finish this cycle before taking a photo, resulting in a slightly out of focus image. For a week of shooting with this camera 50-75% of all photos I took with this camera were out of focus and I found not useable or recoverable in Post.
That's pretty terrible even for a Digicam. Forget about trying to take photos of anything in action too because if you need to take a photo before the sluggish AF system has a chance to go through it's microfocusing routine the camera will let you, but you are not going to like the results.
Obviously the main thing I hate about this camera is its slow and inaccurate Autofocus system, even when compared to other Digicams I have reviewed prior. When the image does get in focus you get that sought after high-contrast bright colors CCD Digicam look but it is a real pain to get there and I'd have a number of different suggestions I'd offer to someone looking for a Digicam and not spend it on an overpriced early Canon ELPH.
The SD630 has a captic sensor 4 way D pad which will hover over where your finger is before you actually click the button; and since it is a little slow to respond I have found that this can mess up what button you select if you go too fast with it. It's a weird experience to use and not overall a positive one.
With this, I will share four of the photos that turned out okay from the Canon Powershot ELPH SD630, among the 1 out of 3-4 photos taken that were useable out of every photo I took with it this week.
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