Review: Canon’s PowerShot D30 takes on extreme conditions

€349

We already know Canon’s pedigree when it comes to making cameras, but with a rising number of competitors in this space, the company has its work cut out. When it comes to rugged cameras they don’t come much more rugged than GoPro, which has become the camera of choice for active photography and extreme sports enthusiasts. However Canon’s PowerShot D30 could be an alternative for those who want something a little more adaptable.

The Canon PowerShot D30 promises a lot: rugged, waterproof, drop proof, freezeproof, and great images to boot. The D30 is a bit of an all rounder. Unlike cameras designed for extreme sports, this one is just as much at home snapping a family occasion as it would be documenting your latest wreck dive or a run on the ski slopes.

It looks the part too. There’s a rubberised strip around the edge to absorb impact – it’s shockproof to 2 metres which means you can drop it and it should survive – and there’s a rubberised grip on the front too, so you can keep hold of it under less than ideal weather conditions.

The good:

The D30 is an improvement over the previous model, the D20, when it comes to deep diving and its shockproof rating. It adds a few metres on, making it more useful for underwater fans.

It feels nicely solid in your hand, without being overly chunky, and the buttons that control filming are easy to access, even when wearing gloves.

We decided to put its waterproof claims to the test, sending it on a dive with Irish Times Business Editor John McManus and the latest GoPro Hero 3+ Black Edition camera.

The good news is that the camera survived the trip - take a look at our video online at irishtimes.com/technology - and shot some good video footage, better than many expected given the ambiant light available under the water.. The camera’s automatic functions cover a multitude of situations, and there’s a specific underwater mode for filming, which makes things a bit easier. Outside of the sea, the still images were also impressive, which makes the camera a good all-rounder.

...the bad:

The Digic 4 processor in the D30 isn’t Canon’s latest – it has since improved on it with the Digic 4+ and is now up to Digic 6 – which makes you feel as if the camera has old technology. It’s also got the same resolution - 12.1 megapixels. Whatever Canon’s reasons for not significantly upgrading this aspect of the camera though, it means that processor wise, it’s not quite as much of a leap over the D20 as we might have hoped. Still, you couldn’t fault the images it produced in our tests.

Zooming while underwater or wearing gloves is a bit more problematic, as the buttons are a bit fiddly. And the reviewing and editing functions aren’t as intuitive as they could be, but that old advice - read the manual - helps a lot here.

...& the rest

The D30 has a lot of extra controls that cameras built for extreme sports won’t. There are 32 Smart Auto modes available along with different scene modes that cover everything from smart shutter (wink, smile and so on) to portraits and different landscapes. It shoots high definition movies in 1080 resolution, super slow motion and even creative modes like colour swap and miniature mode. Plus it’s got an LCD screen that can cope with bright sunlight.

There is built-in GPS - great for tracking where and when your images were shot, not so great if you’re worried about your privacy - but wifi has been left out. It’s not an essential, but it’s a nice extra that makes sharing images a little more convenient.

Up against the pricier GoPro Hero 3+, the images and footage on the PowerShot weren’t quite as impressive, but the GoPro comes with an auto lowlight mode and can film video in 4K, compared to the maximum of 1080 pixels on the D30.

The verdict:

Overall, we were impressed. It’s ideal for watersports enthusiasts but more experienced divers might find the 25-metre depth limit restrictive. And while it’s not in the same league as the GoPro Hero 3+ Black Edition, it’s at least €100 cheaper, which should be taken into account.