As with the 7.2-megapixel PowerShot SD550 Digital Elph, our current Editors' Choice in the high-end ultracompact category, there's a lot to like about the 5MP PowerShot SD450 Digital Elph ($399.95 list). In fact, both have many of the same features. Yet there comes a point when a camera is a tad too tiny, and the SD450 may have reached it. For those with larger hands, the buttons and dials may be too little to use comfortably.

Just how small is the camera? The numbers tell the story: 5 ounces and roughly 3.5 by 2 by 0.8 inches. It's certainly very easy to carry, but the tiny buttons in and around the multifunction selector on the back of the camera are just too close together and will confound fat-fingered photographers. Press any of the buttons with your thumb, and you get the feeling you've accidentally pressed others, too. A somewhat confusing interface adds to the problem.

That said, the SD450 offers a lot of great features for a camera this size. It has a large (2.5-inch) LCD and a glass viewfinder. Like the SD550, it offers 15 shooting modes, including some of the newer funky and fun modes, such as My Colors. This shooter, like the SD400, has a 5-megapixel sensor and a 3X optical zoom with a 5.8mm-to-17.4mm range (which is equivalent to a 35mm lens with a 35mm-105mm zoom) and corresponding maximum f-stops of f/2.8 to f/4.9.

On most of our real-world tests, the SD450 kept pace with the SD550. But in a few cases, such as with an outdoor photo of a bright sky shot through tree branches, we found the SD450 image had more purple fringing than the SD550's. The SD450's also didn't seem quite as sharp.

You can capture video, as motion JPEGs and saved as AVI files, up to the capacity of the card. You can zoom, but the facility is digital, so the image degrades. Still, our informal testing showed the SD450 footage to be as smooth as the D550's and equal in the quality of its video and sound. You wouldn't quite want to leave your camcorder at home, but digital-camera video has come a long way. And at 640-by-480 and 30 frames per second, we think you'll be using more of this feature in the future.

Our daylight shots had noticeable noise, but the images were quite sharp and clear. Color saturation was exceptional and color accuracy was very good, with no discernable color casts. Overall, the exposure was extremely good, had excellent dynamic range, and made colors really pop off the page.

On our test shot, flash coverage was very good for an ultracompact but didn't beat that of the Kodak EasyShare V530, which was quite strong and even in illumination. The resulting image on the SD450 was just slightly underexposed, causing the colors to be a bit muddy, although color saturation and matching were both quite good. We saw a bit of non-colored noise in the image, but nothing very prominent. As in the daylight shot, there was some fringing—more than with the SD550 and the EasyShare V530. Exposure was good overall, with a fine dynamic range that included a rich, deep black, although there was no pure white because of the slight underexposure.

The SD450 scored quite well on our other tests. It averaged 1,400 lines of resolution, which is very good for a 5MP camera and just a touch better than the V530 managed. Boot time was just 2.5 seconds—less than the V530 required. The 2.9-second recycle time was very good, but not as quick as the V530's 1.1 seconds. We noticed little shutter lag—marginally more than with the V530. We found no significant pincushion distortion and just a bit of the usual barrel distortion.

This isn't the cheapest ultracompact around, and with more and more cameras coming out at 6, 7, 8, and even 9 megapixels, you might feel that 5MP is behind the curve. But how many prints will you be making that are larger than 8 by 10 inches? Most users looking for a superportable will be quite happy with the image quality and performance. We wish there were some manual controls and a better menu interface to make it more user-friendly. But if image quality is what you're after, the Canon PowerShot SD450 is one of the best 5MP ultracompacts on the market.

Benchmark Test Results
Check out the Canon PowerShot SD450 Digital Elph's test scores.