Best looking point and shoot...ever!
I purchased this camera new in early 2007 for almost $400, and looking back now, I can't believe I spent so much money on a point and shoot. This was actually the first brand new camera that I'd purchased since 1996, and I bought it because I needed something to take with me when I traveled visiting friends, going to shows, for taking snapshots when I really just didn't feel like dragging out the big DSLR. I came very close to buying the G7, but when I saw the first press images of this camera, I knew immediately that I was going to buy this as soon as it was available. I'm not usually the sort of person that's terribly image conscious, but the original Canon Elph (back when APS was a film format rather than a sensor size) was what I considered the best looking point and shoot of the 1990s, and here was a wonderful little digital point and shoot that brought back everything I loved, style-wise, from the original.
Of course, aesthetics aside, I do expect a camera to have some basic performance capabilities. I knew from borrowing this camera's predecessor (the SD600) that these little cameras were to a level that I felt the picture quality all the way through the ISO scale was what I considered good enough for a pocket camera. I didn't really need a camera like this with manual control, because I don't honestly see the point in a camera with this small of a sensor (DOF wide open is already tremendously deep, and there's not much benefit with respect to resolution from stopping down). At the time, things like 24mm equivalent wide-angle lenses, HD video, image stabilization, sweep panoramas, and the like didn't exist--or at least didn't exist in anything but the top tier of cameras--and weren't even on my list of criteria for picking a camera. The only thing I wished this camera had was RAW capability to get the most flexibility out of it's files, and I still wish it had it.
I took this camera on several vacations and looking back through the photos that I got with it, the daytime snapshots are pretty much what you would expect, with good exposure, low noise, and nice colors. My camera's lens has always been kind of soft at the edges, but for your typical snapshots there wasn't anything wrong with them.
The photos that stand out to me are the ones that are far from perfect. Many of them are motion blurred, taken at high ISO in very low light, and sometimes slightly out of focus. None of that's the camera's fault of course, since I was shooting in some difficult situations: at night on the street, in bars, at shows, late night trips to the supermarket, places that I really should have had a DSLR for the best picture quality. And that's the thing, I would have never taken these photos without the SD1000, because I wouldn't have bothered to have the DSLR with me. Instead I just felt more free to snap away, because I wasn't using a serious camera and didn't expect much of it. And because of that I think these photos capture a much better sense of the feeling of being there than a more perfect photo would have. And some of these...I almost hate to say...are some of my most favorite photos that I took in those years.
So you know, it's worth considering whether you really need to be purchasing all this bulky, complicated photo equipment, when possibly you'd be taking pictures that you'd be happier taking with something much cheaper, and much less fussy. Naturally, I've had people look at those photos and say, "oh, these are terrible, too bad you didn't have a better camera," but they're the photos that I wanted to take, and I'm always happy to look at them again.
Would I buy this camera again? If it were still 2007, absolutely. Today in 2011, I'd probably be looking at something like the Canon S100 or the Ricoh GR Digital IV, but not for the manual control, mostly just for the RAW capability and a better quality lens with less CA and unsharp edges. I'll always have a special place in my heart for the SD1000, however, and it still works as good today as it did a few years ago even if today's cameras easily out-shoot it.
