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894 of 914 found the following review helpful:
 The best pocket-sized Canon yet Mar 25, 2011
By Bob Tobias
"Robert Tobias"
BOTTOM LINE:
With each generation, Canon makes the ELPH series easier to use and still get great results. Like it's predecessors, this one fits easily into your pocket (or the case I recommend toward the end of this review). That point alone may make this the best camera you own; having a $5k DSLR doesn't do you much good if you left it home because it wasn't worth the effort to lug it along.
However, unlike many other small cameras, this one does not sacrifice either features or quality. Well, it does give up on any reasonable manual control, things like setting shutter speed, lens aperture, ISO. What access you do have to that level of control is buried deep inside menus. It took Canon a while to realize that for most of us, if we wanted to fool with that kind of thing on a regular basis, we would be using a different camera. This camera is designed to leverage convenience over extreme control or nth degree quality.
DETAILS:
It is a small camera and carries with it the baggage that comes with the convenience of having to carry so little baggage. (sorry, couldn't resist) None of the issues raised, given that they comes as part of the convenience trade-off made me consider anything other than the 5-star rating this camera deserves.
One issue with all small cameras is the built-in flash. They are all underpowered and create red eye. Both problems are caused by the need to keep the camera small; the flash needs to be small and positioned close to the lens. Canon addresses it by putting in some really good noise reduction so you (actually the camera) can shoot at a relatively high ISO in low light allowing for a faster shutter speed. The result is an image that is both low noise and not blurry. And the best part is the camera takes care of all that so you don't have to. As a result you can take pictures in a well lit room without having to use the flash at all.
- The shutter response, as with any small digital camera for less that $500, is a bit slow for effectively capturing children and pets. The trick for doing that is to either have a great sense of timing and a shutter that reacts instantly or a reasonably fast ( > 4x / sec ) burst mode. This camera has neither.
Some other suggestions that apply:
Normally at this point I would put in some details about manually setting ISO or selecting a color space. However, for this camera it just isn't relevant. You are buying this camera because you want to take great pictures without having to worry about that stuff. If you do want to "take your photography to the next level then a great resource is the Confessions of a Compact Camera Shooter: Get Professional Quality Photos with Your Compact Camera.
Finally, I've found the Caselogic QPB-1 Compact Digital Camera Case (Black/Gray) is just the right size for this camera. It's semi-rigid so you get a fair amount of protection but doesn't add a lot of bulk. It's made even better by using one of these, Nite Ize SB1-2PK-01 Size-1 S-Biner, Black, 2-Pack, to secure it to a belt loop.
222 of 229 found the following review helpful:
Canon ELPH 100 HS -- U R going to luv it Mar 18, 2011
By george bancks
Just received my Canon ELPH 100 HS {orange} and I absolutely love it. The camera boots up almost instantly. Installed a 16GB SDHC class 10 card and now have 5000+ 12MB photo capacity or 60 minutes for HD video. The image stabilization at max digital zoom 4X4/16x works great! The camera easily fits in my pocket and is very light @ ~5 ounces.
The Canon's Digic 4 processor & CMOS sensor make this camera truly point and shoot. By default it automatically selects the light level, shaking, target focus, shutter speed, flash/noflash and ISO to pick the optimal scene type. Perfect pictures virtually every time when button is correctly pressed 1/2 way (1) before fully in (2) for photo shot. But be sure to get a class 10 card for the best video.
The only 2 minor problems I believe are:
1) It comes with a 700 mAh 3.7 Volt battery instead of the 1400 mAh 3.7 OEM version which doubles it run-time for 230 photos to almost 500 pictures per charge. This is easily fixed when ordering additional batteries just get the larger mAh capacity ones.
2) The CameraWindow transfer software doesn't automatically delete pictures after they are transferred. Some people like this as not to delete photos improperly transferred.(I do not). Some camera blogs suggest a quick format after transfer is the way to quickly delete photos/video after successful transfer.
However, this is the best point and shoot camera I have used and I still think it's a 5 star camera @ $199 MSRP.
104 of 108 found the following review helpful:
Good but no Video zoom - Get the 300 HS Apr 05, 2011
By Tuan Thach
The product description for the Canon 100 HS and the 300 HS are very similar and it appears to be mostly just the wide angle and zoom. I compared the two cameras in the store and preferred the look and feel of the grey 100 HS. Only when I was testing the camera did I realize that the 100 HS does not allow you to zoom while shooting video. Another missing feature of the 100 HS is the smart auto scene detection is not active when shooting video. If you don't care about video, save $50 on the 100 HS otherwise get the 300 HS. I exchanged mine and love the 300 HS.
182 of 194 found the following review helpful:
Found a keeper Mar 20, 2011
By Sawyern
I normally use a Nikon D50 which takes great photos, Im no professional but really enjoy taking pictures of my toddler. Well he broke my Nikon and I sent to see if it could be fixed but wanted to point and shoot because they come in really handy! I reviewed what felt like a million cameras, I touched them and felt them and shot pictures with them and hated every single one! I hadnt seen this one online (cause there werent any reviews) but I went to Shutterbug and they had it, I tried it out and loved it! I've had it for a few weeks and I use it everyday! Pictures always turn out amazing! Our house kinda has crappy lighting and its a major problem with pictures, this camera takes the best pictures by far! (not super grainy looking like others) I also wanted to camera that shoots video. I dont use it to shoot professional quality video but Im impressed! Alot better then my last point and shoot. Also my video does autofocus on video mode, so the other viewer might have had a faulty one cause mine does great. I wasnt looking to spend $200 but I'd do it again in a heart beat!
Pros:
powers on so quick
Picture quality
Picture speed (amazing)
low light pictures
video!
Cons:
....nada
48 of 50 found the following review helpful:
Canon ELPH 100 HS - good everyday camera Jul 08, 2011
By P. Schmidt
I have a bunch of digital cameras, from older-and-low-resolution-but-still-useful to newer and fancy. Most but not all have been from Canon, since in my evaluations they have the best all around combination of quality company, support, features, build quality, price, user interface, etc. In the middle of my has been my trusty Canon PowerShot A510, a camera I bought years ago for the sole purpose of quickly shooting images from projected slides (a project to create a quick catalog of slides I had stored in carousels). But over the years the old A510 has been starting to get a bit long in the tooth, although it still takes good everyday pictures and remains reliable enough.
I decided it was time to replace the A510 because I need to manually fiddle with the automatic lens cover mechanism, almost every time I turn the camera on, to get it to open fully.
I did not want to sped a lot of money, but I wanted something with a similar level of utility to the A510. After a lot of evaluating, I settled on the Canon PowerShot ELPH 100 HS. Like the A510, it has similar optics, and the zoom is also an optical 4X. The size in the hand is almost identical, although the new one is about half as thick.
One thing I always thought Canon did very well with their digital cameras is the user interface. And that interface was pretty consistent across their lineup, so that most functions were done the same way on all my Canons, using the same or at least very similar buttons and controls. The new ELPH 100 dispenses with the older tradition, and does some things differently.
On the older system there was a thumb operated knob on top for selecting AUTO plus several common modes such as Portrait, Landscape, Night, Sports/Action, Panorama, and a few variations of Manual mode. The new system replaces the knob with a two position selector on top which is essentially AUTO and ALL ELSE. When in AUTO, the camera evaluates the composition of your picture and decides which mode to use automatically. When in ALL ELSE, the LCD screen presents those other modes for your manual selection using the Up/Down/Left/Right navigation control on the back of the camera. This is slightly more difficult than using the knob, but not too much more so.
An improvement over the older system is that the Movie button is a separate control, so you can start shooting your movie immediately by pressing the button, instead of needing to turn the knob of navigate through a menu. Unlike some of the bigger Canon cameras, the ELPH 100 does not allow simultaneous movie and still photo shooting. But if you are shooting a movie and press the shutter button twice, the first press cancels the movie and the second press takes the still photo. You could then press the movie button again and resume shooting the movie with only a couple seconds lost. Also, the ELPH 100 does not allow changes to exposure after the move shoot has started, although it does allow zoom and auto focus changes during the shoot.
In AUTO, the ELPH 100 automatically goes into macro mode when you get close to an object. In ALL ELSE, you can select several options in this regard.
The ELPH 100 uses the red/orange lamp on the front as a surrogate flash bulb for red-eye reduction, as opposed to firing an early flash to close down the subject person's pupils. The lamp is very bright in this case, but at other times is is less bright for other indications such as timer mode count down.
The ELPH has several combinations of photo quality/resolution, and allows you to select between four movie quality settings; two are widescreen HD, and two are stand aspect ratio video. The various ALL ELSE modes that apply to still photos can also be applied to movies.
As will all Canons, the still photo trigger control (shutter release) is both a button AND a rotating, spring return to center zoom control. Using the zoom while in picture taking mode will zoom optically first, then will adjust digital zoom if held for a longer time. Using the zoom while in picture viewing (playback) mode will allow close inspection of pictures you already took (use the navigation control pad to pan around inside the zoomed in view), and will also turn the LCD viewfinder into a photo gallery of taken pictures and movies, allowing for quickly jumping around in your collection.
Another departure from some older models is that there is no longer a clear-cut selector switch for choosing picture taking mode versus picture viewing mode. Instead, there is a button that puts the camera into viewing mode, and pressing the shutter release trigger button puts it back into picture taking mode.
The ELPH 100 comes with a video cable that has both HDMI and standard PCD audio and composite video connectors for connecting to your TV. It also comes with a USB cable, although the camera manual does not indicate that the battery can be charged via USB; it only mentions charging by way of the included AC wall charger that the battery fits into (i.e. you must remove the battery from the camera).
The ELPH 100 takes standard SD memory cards as well as SDHC and SDXC and MultiMedia cards, MMC-Plus cards, and Eye-Fi cards (the latter is not guaranteed to work). NOTE: the ELPH 100 does NOT come with a memory card, and you cannot use the camera without the card. In the old days, digital cameras came with a small memory cord just so you could at least play around with it before buying a larger card, but this is no longer true. The camera is often bundled with a memory card by the retailer, just keep your eyes open when buying.
A big departure from the older A510 and its relatives is the use of a proprietary rechargeable battery as opposed to standard AA batteries. I really liked being able to travel with a couple sets of AA's and a wall charger, and be able to use those charged batteries in any of the cameras I had according to need. With the new camera I will be locked into the special battery. It is easy to get this camera bundled (by Amazon and by stores) with a second battery, so at least I can have a charged spare on hand. The newer batteries DO allow for a thinner and lighter weight camera, and the Lithium-Ion technology charges very quickly and lasts a long time.
I will not go into specifics of 'how good are the pictures'. The pictures are very good, and you can make them even better by going into manual mode(s). At the price range of the ELPH 100, the photo quality is at least competitive with other brands and models.
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