Camera Reviews: Canon PowerShot Pro1 $799

The PowerShot Pro1 is a sweet camera. With its all-black body and lens barrel-based
zoom control, it has the feel of a very compact single-lens reflex model. It's
built on the now-standard advanced digital camera shape: a squared-off body with a
large protruding lens and a chunky right-hand grip that doubles as the camera's
battery compartment. But the Pro1 feels significantly smaller in the hand than its
competitors--especially other 8-megapixel models. An easy-to-grip ring on the
camera's stubby lens barrel controls the zoom. It's still a powered zoom, but a
fairly smooth and precise one nevertheless. The ring doubles as your focus control
when the camera's manual focus is switched on. Unfortunately, this arrangement does
make it difficult to use the camera one-handed.

The Pro1 earned high scores in color and exposure accuracy, sharpness, and
distortion avoidance. With flash, it nicely reproduced subtle shadings of our
model's skin tone and colorful clothing. Shooting outdoors on a bright, sunny day
with high contrast, the camera retained the shadow details without washing out the
pure blue sky.

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