Canon PowerShot SD300 / Digital IXUS 40

With beautifully rounded curves and polished, all-metal bodies, Canon takes the IXUS design philosophy to new levels. These petite and desirable digital accessories feature ‘over-size' 2.0” LCD displays and blistering DIGIC II performance processing power for super responsive shooting, superb image quality, instant playback and the ability to shoot footage limited in length only by the capacity of the SD card .

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FEATURES

Image capture

Images taken with the 4.0 Megapixel Digital IXUS 40 can be used for detailed prints all the way to A3 and A4 size respectively. This camera is amongst the first ever to incorporate UA (Ultra-high Refractive Index Glass Moulded (GMo) Aspherical lens) elements. Developed by Canon's lens material scientists, UA elements help the camera's 35–105mm 3x optical zoom (35mm film equivalent) achieve high-resolution and good contrast characteristics.

The camera also incorporates 9-point Artificial Intelligence Auto Focus (AiAF) for fast, sharp and accurate focus, even with off-centre subjects.

Image Processing

For superb image quality at break-neck speed, all primary camera functions are handled by Canon's dedicated second generation DIGIC II processor. DIGIC II is the same technology driving Canon's EOS-1D Mark II pro-series SLR 69 Megapixel per sec. performance. This is the first time it has been incorporated into a Digital IXUS. DIGIC II handles all the complex algorithms required for accurate colour rendering and enhanced image quality, precision white balance and metering. In addition it ensures quick camera control, fast auto-focus, extended high quality movies, rapid start-up times and approx. 2.4 fps continuous, uninterrupted shooting. Playback is as fast as flipping through an album; users will never again experience the frustration of staring at the camera LCD screen waiting for images to appear.

Great results - any conditions

The camera features iSAPS technology – an in-built photographer's assistant that uses camera settings and environmental data to predict the most likely scene in order to optimise white balance, focus and exposure settings accordingly. In addition to the Auto, Manual, Stitch Assist and Movie modes, 6 scene modes are provided to assist with selecting the best focus, exposure, ISO, white balance, shutter speed and photo effect settings to match the shooting environment. Users can shoot with confidence after selecting from scene modes such as, Portrait, Night Snapshot, Kids & Pets and Indoor. An Underwater scene mode is included for use with the optional 3m depth All Weather Case AW-DC30.

Keeping things compact

The camera is an extremely thin 20.7 mm, weighing in at just 115g respectively. The diminutive sizes are made possible by a string of technology advances, including the new UA lens, slimmer LCD, improved circuit assembly techniques and a smaller, more efficient battery.

Moving pictures

The new-look camera is capable of taking extended movies (with sound, full playback and in-camera editing), of up to 1GB in size, when using high speed SD cards movie length is limited only by the card's capacity. This is the first digital still camera in the world to features up to one minute of 60 fps QVGA quality, which allows for in-camera slow motion replay at various user-selectable speeds. Different frame rates and resolutions can be selected to best suit end applications such as TV playback or email attachment.

Nothing like a photo print

A Print/Share button simplifies direct printing via USB cable to any PictBridge compatible photo printer. The camera is perfectly matched to Canon's new SELPHY range of personal photo printers, for instant, durable lab-quality photos. As well as a postcard date imprint mode, the camera features ID photo mode to create photo-booth style ID prints for passport and other ID purposes, and Movie print mode, which prints an entire action sequence of up to 63 evenly spaced frames from any chosen movie clip. The Print/Share button also facilitates automatic and simple uploads to any Windows PC.

Easy playback

Viewing images is now a joy and searching through thumbnail images is considerably easier with the huge 2.0” hi-resolution 118,000 pixel LCD screen that covers most of the camera back. An Intelligent Orientation Sensor takes into account the likely position of the sky and foreground before setting focus, exposure and white balance settings. It then rotates images to the correct orientation for easy, enjoyable playback. An advanced magnified image playback function maintains the area and ratio of magnification when moving from image to image during playback – particularly useful when viewing a continuous sequence of the same scene.

No fuss online sharing

The new IXUS camera comes complete with full membership to CANON iMAGE GATEWAY (CiG), a personal online photo gallery with 100MB of free online space for storing and sharing favourite albums. CiG can also be used to personalise the camera with start-up images and sound-effect downloads. A movie upload facility is also available via a special download from the CiG site.

Software

Software supplied includes intuitive, user-friendly browsing and printing software ZoomBrowser EX 5.0 (Windows) and ImageBrowser 5.0 (Mac), which include new features to make managing images and editing movies easy. Other software includes PhotoStitch for merging a Stitch Assist series into a single wide panorama on the PC, and ArcSoft image editing software PhotoImpression and VideoImpression. Support for all popular European languages is extended to 21 languages and now includes Russian, Portuguese, Greek, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Chinese and Korean.

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PICTURES

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SPECIFICATION

Sensor • 1/2.5 " Type CCD
• million pixels total
• 4 million effective pixels • 1/2.5" Type CCD
• million pixels total
• 3.2 million effective pixels

Image sizes • 2272 x 1704
• 1600 x 1200
• 1024 x 768
• 640 x 480 • 2048 x 1536
• 1600 x 1200
• 1024 x 768
• 640 x 480

Movie clips • 640 x 480 (30 fps) (up to 1GB)
• 320 x 240 (15 fps) (up to 1GB)
• 160 x 120 (up to 3 minutes)

File formats Still: JPEG
Movie: AVI (Motion JPEG)
Sound: WAV (monoaural)

Lens • 35 - 105mm (3x digital zoom)
• F2.8 - F4.9

Digital zoom Up to 3.6x

Focus TTL

AF area modes • 9-point AiAF
• 1-point fixed AF (fixed centre)

AF assist lamp Yes

Focus distance • 3cm macro mode

Metering • Evaluative
• Center- weighted
• Spot

ISO sensitivity • Auto
• ISO 50
• ISO 100
• ISO 200
• ISO 400

Exposure compensation • +/-2EV
• 1/3 stop increments

Shutter speed • 15 - 1/1500 sec
• Slow shutters of 1 sec or more available in Long Shutter Mode only
• Shutter speeds of 1.3 sec and more operate with noise reduction

Scene modes • Auto
• Manual
• Portrait
• Night Snapshot
• Kids & Pets
• Indoor
• Underwater
• Digital Macro
• Stitch Assist

White balance • Auto
• Daylight
• Cloudy
• Tungsten
• Fluorescent
• Fluorescent H
• Custom

Self timer 2 or 10 seconds

Continuous shooting • 2.4 fps until memory card becomes full (with LCD monitor off) and depending on the memory card capacity and speed

Image parameters Vivid, Neutral, Low Sharpening, Sepia, Black & White

Flash • Auto, manual, on/off, slow sync, red-eye reduction•
• Flash exposure lock
• Range: 50 cm - 3.5m (wide) / 2m (tele)

Viewfinder Optical

LCD monitor • 2" TFT LCD
• 118,000 pixels

Connectivity • USB
• AV out

Print compliance • EXif 2.2
• DPOF
• PictBridge

Storage • SD card
• 16 MB card supplied

Power • Rechargeable lithium ion NB-4L battery

Weight (no batt) 130 g (4.6 oz) 115 g (4 oz)

Dimensions 86 x 53 x 21 mm
(3.4 x 2.1 x 0.8 in) 86 x 54 x 21 mm
(3.4 x 2.1 x 0.8 ins)