Canon SD990IS vs. SD880IS

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Very interested in upgrading from my SD700IS, which is a great camera but long in the tooth. I really want the

extra 28mm width provided by the SD880IS but also want the manual controls on the SD990IS. Aside from these two

features, the important things for me are IQ, noise and/or noise correction smudging, and shot-to-shot speed.

Any suggestions for how I could choose between these cameras?

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Another option is the Panasonic TZ5, which has much more zoom but I'm overall less impressed with Panasonic's IQ

-- especially when it comes to noise correction.

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Thanks,<BR>

ALF

The Canon SD models have lenses that are really terrible

in the corners. Don't know if you noticed...

I think the Panasonic LX3 wins the race by several kilometers

and you'd be silly to spend money on a new Canon SD.

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I only took a few shots with the 880 and haven't been able to find a store with the 990, but I didn't notice anything wrong with edges or corners in my test shots. Never had any issues with the SD700IS either, but it may simply be I'm not attuned to seeing it.

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One thing that DID impress me with the SD880IS, however, was the Macro mode:

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http://www.photo.net/photo/8098496

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That's the sharpest macro shot I've ever seen from a P&S, plus it was handheld in available room lighting.

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ALF

The 880 and 990 are new, so reviews are not complete,

but if you look at the "multi target" for the SD700

on imaging-resource.com, you can easily see poor sharpness

at the edges, partially attributable to purple fringing.

On your advice, I had a chance to do some more testing this weekend, shooting some 1600 ISO shots with the TZ5 and the SD880. I can't say anything emperically, but subjectively I found the TZ5 produced warmer (and some would say more accurate) colors. I've found every Canon I've owned (including the 20D and 5D) generally output cooler tones by default. Correctible, but annoying to do for everything in JPG so I usually shoot RAW.

Anyhow, the other trend I noticed was the TZ5 smudged images significantly more then the SD880 -- but primarily in the out-of-focus background stuff. The SD880 didn't smudge as much but those same portions of the image were darker. The result was essentially that things like background foliage appeared out-of-focus (albeit dark) from the SD880 but actually unrecognizable from the TZ5.

Background is less of an issue and again this was ISO 1600, but the same algorithms apply at other ISOs on each camera -- I just wanted to see the extremes. I'd like to take a look at the LX3 but will have to wait until it shows up in stores. Would it be significantly different than the TZ5? RAW would certainly be nice, as would A & S modes.

Would still like to se how the 990 compares to the 800 though. I have a feeling the extra megapixels are more of a problem than a plus, at least for high-ISO indoor use.

ALF