New Camera and Facial Recognition Software -- Canon SD1100 IS Reiew

Oy oy. 

 

I purchased a new camera over the weekend.  It just hit the market... it hadn't even been put on the shelf yet at my local camera shop.  It is a Canon SD1100 IS. It has many new features that I really liked. 

 

The facial recognition feature is really cool.  The idea is that when FR is turned on, the camera will autmatically identify, focus and optimize the photo for anything that it thinks is a face.  I tried this out on humans and it worked PERFECTLY on every test subject available (meaning Laura and me). 

 

I also confirmed that it works on different species.  Mao and Gracie (our cats) were the first candidates.  It had NO problem with them.  The red-eye elimination routine is great too.   In the cats, Laura's A570 would actually give them glowing gold eyes instead of the red ones that normally are seen with a flash.  This camera had no trouble with either kind of glowing eyes. 

 

I decided to see how the camera did with inanimate objects and facial recognition.  I then got out a stack of different toys that we have in the sun room to see what it would recognize and what would have problems with.  Mike Wazowski (one-eyed monster from the movie Monsters, INC.) was no problem.  In fact most of the characters of Bug's Life and Lilo and Stitch provided no trouble at all.  All of my toy dinosaurs had faces that were easily identified with the facial recognition software.

 

There were some things that did not work so well.  Barbie and Ken were not recognized as having faces (no big surprise there). They were posed side by side and the camera could only focus on Barbies oddly proportioned boobs and legs. 

 

I found a few plush toys (beanie babies) that also didn't work.    Hello Kitty didn't make the cut. 

 

I then took the camera to work to continue the testing.  After snapping many photos of friends and co-workers, I was surprised to find one individual that was continually out of focus.  I couldn't figure this out, because obviously this guy has a face.  Then I realized it...  It wasn't that the camera couldn't recognize his face.  It was that the camera couldn't figure out which face to focus on.   Once I swithced the FR feature off, the photos of this individual came out perfect. 

 

This concludes my camera review/social commentary for the day.

 

Hugs and Kisses,

 

Pete