The Camera Tough Enough for Your Next Adventure

For those with a taste for adventure, there’s a camera as bold as the active life you lead. It’s the Canon PowerShot D10. Waterproof, freezeproof and shockproof; it’s tough enough to take what you dish out. Plus it’s got all the high performance features you expect from a Canon digital camera. You’ve got 12.1 megapixels of resolution plus all of Canon’s powerful, state-of-the-art imaging technologies so you can capture your epic experiences in breathtaking color and awesome detail.

Product Features

• Take this camera anywhere: waterproof to 33 feet, cold resistant from 14-104&F and shockproof up to 4 feet.
• A selection of unique accessories available such as customized straps and interchangeable faceplates.
• DIGIC 4 Image Processor has evolved Face Detection Technology that tracks the faces of moving subjects and lets the shooter enter the frame seamlessly with the Face Detection Self-Timer.
• 12.1 Megapixels for amazing resolution and editing, plus 3x Optical Zoom lens with Optical Image Stabilizer.
• Blink Detection alerts a shooter after a shot has been taken that a subject has closed eyes.
• Smart AUTO intelligently selects the proper settings for the camera based on 18 predefined shooting situations.

A Rugged Digital Camera Built for Adventure

Life can take you almost anywhere. So Canon engineered a digital camera durable enough to go where you go and produce the kind of awe-inspiring images that will earn your respect. It’s the PowerShot D10 and it is no ordinary digital camera. This unique camera is waterproof down to 33 feet so you can take it scuba diving, snorkeling or surfing. It’s freezeproof and can withstand extremes of temperature from 14-104°F so it’s also ideal for snowboarding, mountaineering and more. Plus, it’s shockproof, so when the going gets rough, the D10 will keep going strong.

Product Specs

Canon Powershot D10’s Review

digitalcamerareview.com

06/14/09

With the introduction of the snazzy little Canon PowerShot D10, Canon finally ventures into the one arena of the digital camera wars where they haven’t gone before. The new D10 is Canon’s first underwater point and shoot, waterproof to 10 meters/33 feet. Canon has long offered underwater housings for their more popular cameras, but those contraptions occasionally leak, cost almost as much as the camera, and they’re bulky and complicated in use.

One of the most impressive things about underwater digital cameras (which seem to be pretty popular right now) is that unlike the dedicated underwater cameras of the past, Nikon’s venerable Nikonos for example, today’s underwater cameras are simply tougher waterproof versions of general use compact digitals with all the bells and whistles of their above water siblings.

Canon’s digital cameras are the dominant competitors in just about every Point and Shoot class, but they’re starting from scratch here. The D10 isn’t particularly compact, elegant, or stylish looking – rather it sports a kind of bulbous metallic industrial-chic look with lots of exposed screw heads. The matte silver and electric blue (I see a matte silver and hot pink model on the horizon) color scheme seemed a bit flashy to me, and one of my friends thought it looked like a slightly garish toy from Hasbro or Mattel.

BUILD AND DESIGN
The D10 features a very good 3x (35mm-105mm equivalent) zoom with optical image stabilization and Canon’s fourth generation DIGIC processor coupled to a 1/2.3-inch 12.1 megapixel CCD image sensor. There’s also a 30 fps VGA (640x480) movie mode and a new Smart Auto (exposure) mode.

Ergonomics and Controls
In hand the D10 is a tiny bit awkward because of its unconventional shape, but the control layout is standard Canon – meaning everything is familiar (to anyone who has ever used a Canon digital), easily accessed, and logical. The D10’s user interface is uncomplicated and straightforward with large clearly marked buttons and a simple intuitive control array.

Operation is dead simple: all exposure options are minor variations on the auto mode theme. Along the top edge of the D10’s rear deck are three buttons – the Print button which is used to select images to be printed (when the camera is connected to a PictBridge compatible printer), the Mode button permits users to select Auto, Program, one of the D10’s 18 Scene modes, or movie mode), and finally the Playback button – to access review mode. Canon clearly designed the D10 to be useful in a broad range of shooting environments and to be usable by just about anyone. Most purchasers will have no difficulty using the camera right out of the box.

The D10 dispenses with the chintzy string style wrist straps seen on most of its competitors in favor of a heavy duty lanyard style wrist strap with a sliding loop lock. The wrist strap terminates in a locking male bayonet lug which mates with one of the four (one on each corner of the camera) sockets – allowing users (finally, something for the lefties) to place the wrist strap exactly where they want it.

Menus and Modes
The PowerShot D10 features Canon’s classic menu system – the best in the business. Navigation is brutally simple since the camera permits only minimal user input. Push the menu button and the Camera or Setup sub-menus appear at the top of the menu page – most functions/options can be set once and forgotten. Even video editing, which is usually complicated and unintuitive, is easy.

The D10’s compass switch (four-way controller) and FUNC button provide direct menu access to the most commonly changed/adjusted features and functions like exposure compensation, WB, sensitivity, My Colors, flash, macro mode, metering, drive mode, and resolution.
Basic shooting modes on the D10 include:

• Auto: Point-and-shoot mode with very limited user input
• Smart Auto: automatic scene recognition mode that instantly compares what’s in front of the lens with an on board image database and then matches that information with the specific scene’s subject distance, white balance, contrast, dynamic range, lighting, and color (just before the image is recorded) to determine the best exposure. For example if the D10 determines that a face (or faces) is the subject – the camera automatically switches to Portrait mode.
• Program: Auto exposure with user input (sensitivity, white balance, etc.)
• Scene: Portrait, Landscape, Night Scene, Foliage, Snow, Beach, Sunset, Fireworks, Aquarium, Underwater, ISO 3200, Long Shutter, Indoor, Kids & Pets, Night Snapshot, Color Accent, Color Swap, Stitch Assist
• Movie: The camera records video at a maximum of 640x480 @ 30 fps for up to 4 GB or 1 hour.

Display/Viewfinder
Like many current point and shoots, the D10 doesn’t provide an optical viewfinder, relying instead on the 2.5 inch (230,000 pixel) LCD screen. Optical viewfinders are expensive and many casual shooters don’t use them so it makes sense (especially with an underwater camera) to use the LCD screen for all framing/composition, review, and menu navigation chores. In many common shooting venues it is usually quicker to watch the decisive moment come together on the LCD screen than it is through the optical viewfinder. LCD screens are TTL (through the lens) and function as accurate framing tools, but for portraits and shooting in bright outdoor locales I prefer an optical viewfinder.

CONCLUSIONS
There really isn’t much to complain about with the D10. It’s cheaper than the closest competitor from Olympus, it goes a little deeper than many of the other underwater cameras in its class, and it has the toughest wrist strap ever to grace a compact digital. I’ve been using Canons for more than 10 years and I’ve only been disappointed once. That’s because Canon seems to know what consumers want and they deliver cameras that are affordable, easy to use, feature rich, fairly compact, relatively quick, and capable of consistently producing excellent images.
The D10’s competition will come primarily from Olympus and to a lesser degree, Pentax and Panasonic, but I believe the D10 will prove itself very well in this new arena. If consumers like the D10 and its successors Canon may eventually try for a hat trick and challenge Olympus’ top-dog status in this growing niche market.
In addition to the ability to slip beneath the waves, the D10 can endure extended exposure to rain, mist, jungle-like humidity, and dusty desert venues. Not only is the D10 a super general-use camera, it is also a great outdoor adventure camera because it will take pictures in conditions where other cameras can’t.