Canon PowerShot SD450

The SD450 is small enough so that it can fit in your pocket. It comes set up as the perfect "point and shoot" digital camera, so that even those without much photography or electronics experience can easily take good pictures. For those more inclined to use technology, a number of Canon "My Colors" modes and a great many options can quickly and easily be modified to make for a more quality photo experience. The camera's 2.5 inch LCD screen is big and beautiful and makes viewing pictures easy and fun, though when it's too dark or impractical to use the LCD, a viewfinder is conveniently placed above the lens.

The reason this camera makes such a great college companion is its ease of use, size, and durability. Being so small and light, it can easily be stowed in a pocket or purse, though there are dozens of small camera cases that be purchased for under $20 that are better suited to protect it. My brief story of its longevity: I've owned my SD450 for about six months, and I have never once had a problem with it. Being a college kid myself, I've had ample opportunity to drop, pummel, and generally beat up the camera. Despite more than the average wear and tear, it has held up wonderfully and has never given me trouble. Again, this is one grade-A camera when it comes to "point and shoot" tactics.

However, for those who want a little more out of their 5 MP camera, the SD450 offers dozens of options and hundreds of combinations of effects, including black and white, antique, indoors/outdoors, and portrait presets. The My Colors tools allow for further manipulation of color. For instance, if you want to highlight someone's eyes, dress, or even the sky, you could make the camera deepen all blue hues. This would effectively make everything of similar tone stand out. Another feature, though less practical, allows you to switch colors. This can be used, for example, to make the sky green, water orange, or any monotone color bright and artificial. The uses of these tools are highly detailed in multiple booklets that come with the camera - well over 100 pages of literature. While the instruction manual truly can be daunting, it's well organized and is more useful as a reference guide than anything else.

As for the images (which are incidentally why people buy cameras), they're crisp and detailed. The SD450 comes equipped with a Canon DIGIC II processor, which is one of the more successful image capturing processors currently on the market. The camera also comes equipped with a video mode capable of capturing images at rates up to 60 frames per second. This is great for capturing fast-moving footage, though the quality is not fantastic in the video mode as it is when shooting single images.

This camera suffers from very few downfalls. One of my biggest concerns though is that there is no battery indicator. The camera does not drain the battery at more than a moderate rate unless you are constantly photographing with a flash, but it would be nice to know when you're running low on energy. I've also heard tales of the LCD cracking under heavy pressure or after being dropped, but strength is being sacrificed (slightly) in favor of size. Also, during times when moving quickly, the camera sometimes has a hard time compensating - but this is true to form with most mid-range digital cameras.

This camera is a fantastic buy. While it's not cheap (retail price of $299.99), the PowerShot SD450 is a great investment and a great camera that all users can appreciate. As soon as you charge the battery, you'll want to start taking pictures. Once this happens, you'll discover that the standard 16 megabyte SD-Card is not big enough, so invest in something larger. Portable, capable, and dependable, Canon has succeeded at producing a high-quality digital camera that works as well as it's supposed to, especially in the hands of a college student.