Canon PowerShot ELPH 300 HS: Video and Image Quality

Video Quality
The ELPH 300 HS shoots very good movies in full HD in its highest resolution movie mode, 1920 x 1080 resolution at 24 frames per second, with good stereo sound. In addition, optical zoom can be used. Recording will automatically stop when either the file size reaches 4GB or the recording time reaches approximately 10 minutes (in HD mode) or 1 hour (in standard definition mode).

The movie shot below was taken at the highest resolution and I was able to zoom in smoothly. I was pleased that the subject remained in focus during the whole recording. The colors were as very similar to how they actually appeared.

Super Slow Motion is a very cool feature. In the video below the action is slowed by a factor of 8.

Image Quality
The ELPH 300 HS creates good looking images, with strong but realistic colors. As I've found with all Canon cameras I've tested, it can produce excellent macro photos.

I experienced occasional overexposure with the ELPH 300 HS, a common problem with cameras that have small sensors.

The camera has an i Contrast mode that evens out areas of high contrast, as demonstrated below.

i Contrast On

i Contrast Off

The ELPH 300 HS has white balance settings for auto, daylight, cloudy, tungsten, two types of fluorescent and custom. I mainly used auto white balance with very good results.

Auto White Balance, 5500k fluorescent light

The flash has four settings, auto, always on, always off and slow synchro (which uses a slow shutter speed to brighten the background). Flash range is 50cm to 3.5m (1.6 ft. to 11.5 ft.) at wide angle and 90cm to 2m (3 ft. to 6.6 ft.) at telephoto.

According to the ISO table below, the ELPH 300 HS produces sharp, noise-free images with good color through 200 ISO, but the images grow progressively softer through 3200 ISO, though noise is not that evident and color remains strong.

ISO 100	ISO 100, 100% crop
ISO 200	ISO 200, 100% crop
ISO 400	ISO 400, 100% crop
ISO 800	ISO 800, 100% crop
ISO 1600	ISO 1600, 100% crop
ISO 3200	ISO 3200, 100% crop

Based on my own experience with the ELPH 300 HS, images produced in low light were better than with most point and shoot cameras. The three images that follow were taken at ISO 400, 800 and 1600, and they all appear to be of similar good quality, with minimal noise and good color.

400 ISO	800 ISO
1600 ISO

Additional Sample Images