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  • Product Tour

  • Hardware

  • Design & Layout

  • Modes

  • Controls

  • Conclusion

  • Product Tour
  • Hardware
  • Design & Layout
  • Modes
  • Controls
  • Conclusion

Product Tour


While the PowerShot D10 is built to take a beating, rather than going the rugged and bolted look that other manufacturers have decided on, Canon have opted for a rounder, more friendly looking device, which looks a bit like something crafted by Fisher-Price. The camera is rated to depths of 33 feet, can handle a four-foot vertical drop, and temperatures down to 14°F.

Front


On the front of the D10, you can see several of the more interesting features of the camera. The fixed lens and positively mammoth flash both spring out immediately. The blue face plate can be taken off with an Allen key, and swapped for optional extra plates, including a camouflage one. In each corner of the camera lies a bayonet mount, where you can slot in various tethers. Having a slot in every corner means you can run a neck-strap in any configuration that's easy for you. 

Back


For this camera, Canon has completely eschewed dials, sliders or switches, instead relying entirely on buttons. This means that selecting modes is done via a button (above the screen in this case), and there are zoom-in and zoom-out buttons on the top right. One assumes dials and switches might allow water to get into the delicate workings of the machine.

Sides


On the side view, you can get better look at the strap receptacles on each corner of the camera. You can also see the port cover on the right side, which protects fragile electronics from the vagaries of the elements.

Top


The top of camera has only two buttons, a small one for power, and a large for shutter control.

Bottom


Underneath the camera is the tripod mount, and the substantial cover for battery and memory card (neither of which should be changed while submerged. If you run out of space on your SD card while snorkeling, that's tough).

Hardware

 

LCD


The LCD squeezes an everyday 230,000 pixels into 2.5 inches of diagonal space. The screen has a wide viewing angle, and has been treated to help prevent glare, in keeping with the general outdoorsy theme of the camera.

 

Flash


The flash is exceptionally large for the size of the camera, and has been officially rated for one to 10 feet, though we imagine that this would be substantially less while shooting in the briny depths. It's positioned in a location what is just about impossible to block with your fingers, but is very close to the lens, which may lead to red-eye problems. The flash can be set to Auto, Red-eye Reduction, Auto Red-eye Correction, Flash On, Flash Off; FE lock, and Slow Synchro.

Lens


The D10's lens is rather petite, and in a fixed position so that the form factor of the camera never changes, regardless of where in the 3x zoom continuum you lie. The focal range is a 35mm equivalent of  35-105mm, and the maximum aperture is a fast f/2.8.

Jacks, Ports & Plugs


The camera uses a standard mini USB out port, and a DC in plug for an optional AC adapter. This latter should, under no circumstances, be used underwater. 

Battery


Unsurprisingly, the PowerShot D10 uses a proprietary battery, well protected against the possibility of water damage. The battery is rated for 220 images, which is a little on the low side.

Memory


As with most point-and-shoot cameras (barring the folks at Sony and Olympus), the PowerShot D10 uses SD and SDHC cards, which are common and inexpensive.

Ruggedness**
**


The camera is officially rated for temperatures down to 14°F, water 33 feet, and is protected against falls of up to four feet vertically. This last stat may not sound very impressive, but is more to protect against bumps and bangs, if, say, you were to take the camera rock climbing. This puts the Canon on close footing with such beasts as the Olympus 1030 SW, which debuted for $400 (though it could handle a 6.6-foot drop).

Design & Layout

Design & Appearance


The camera looks definitely toy-like. With its lack of hard edges, large buttons, and protection against physical duress, it could probably serve double duty as toy for a young child. Heck, it you could just about give to a baby as a chew toy. The drool probably wouldn't do it any harm.

Size & Handling


The camera fits in the hand quite well, partly due to its large size and light weight. The large buttons and controls make the camera a bit easier to hold if you're gloved, which is great for people who want to take the camera skiing. The camera is 4.08 inches wide (103.6mm), 2.63 inches high (66.9mm), and 1.92 inches deep (48.8mm). It weighs 6.7 oz (190g) without battery. Due to its size, and fixed lens, you're not going to be able fit this in your pocket, unless you have access to MC Hammer's old wardrobe.

Menu


As always, Canon's menus are well laid out, clear and easy to use.

Ease of Use


The D10 is incredibly easy to use. Due to the physical limitations of the controls (namely that it only uses buttons), Canon has pared the camera down to barebones controls. There are few modes or options, which makes it exceedingly easy to pick up and use, partly so you won't have to fiddle with settings while skiing down a slope.

Modes

Auto Mode


The Canon PowerShot D10 is pretty much only auto. There's a program mode, which gives a little more control, but in general this is a pretty hands-off-the-settings camera.

Movie Mode


The movie mode on the D10 has a decent amount of control. You can set ISO, white balance, color mode, metering and film at either 640x480 or 320x240, at 30fps.

Drive/Burst Mode


There is no burst mode to speak of on the PowerShot D10, only single shot and continuous. The timer can be set to 10 seconds, 2 seconds, smile detect or custom, which lets you select the time delay, then how many shots are taken.

Playback Mode


Since the camera has no internal memory and the PMA sample had no SD card inserted, we were unable to preview the playback mode.

Custom Image Presets


The D10 has a substantial number of scene modes. You can set it to: portrait, landscape, night snap, kids and pets, indoors, sunset, fireworks, long shutter, beach, underwater, aquarium, foliage, snow, ISO 3200, color accent, color swap and stitch assist. With color accent, you can aim the camera at a certain color, and all the other colors will be removed, for a Sin City-style effect. Color swap works in a similar manner, but lets you change the color you select to another, on the fly.

Controls

Manual Controls


The PowerShot D10 has limited manual controls, which isn't really surprising given the type of camera it is.

Focus


The focal modes for the Canon can be set to macro, normal, infinity, and, surprisingly, manual focus. The manual setting is controlled by the up and down buttons on the four-way controller.

ISO


At full resolution, the ISO runs from 80-1600, with 3200 at reduced image size.

White Balance


The white balance selection is fairly standard, with an addition for aquatic adventures. Along with custom and auto, there's sun, cloud, tungsten, fluorescentL, fluorescentH, and underwater.

Metering


No surprises here: the metering can be set to evaluative, center-weighted, or spot.

Shutter Speed


The D10 can take exposures up to 15 seconds long, or as fast as 1/1500 of a second. This is a respectable range at the long end, but it could be faster.

Aperture


The aperture can not be manually set on this camera, and maxes out at f/2.8 wide and f/4.9 at tele, so if you're nice and close to a shark, you'll get a great exposure.

Image Stabilization


The D10 uses optical image stabilization, which moves the camera's lens to try and compensate for hande shake.

Picture Quality & Size Options


Image size runs from 4000 x 3000 down to 640 x 480, and image compression can be set to normal or fine.

Picture Effects


For this camera, the picture effects are called My Colors. Using this set of options you can chose vivid, neutral, sepia, black and white, positive, lighter skin tone, darker skin tone, vivid blue, vivid green, vivid red, or custom.

Conclusion

Meet the tester

Tim Barribeau

Tim Barribeau

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