Thank you reyalp. Sure, it's the size that sets limits for picture quality, but from my old camera I am used to a better size-to-sharpness ratio.
I've got a Minolta G500 which has a similar size as the SD990. The chipsize is 1/1.8", the focal length is 39 - 117 mm and the pictures are overall sharp. And the camera has manual aperture and shutter time settings. But Minolta does not build cameras anymore and I need more than 5 megapixels and a wider angle would also be nice. Coming from that camera, the G10 seems a bit too big for me, while on the other hand I wouldn't necessarily need a "spycam"- sized camera. I'd like a camera at the size of the Panasonic Lumix LX-3 but it's focal range is too small for me.
The pictures shot with the G10 have a great sharpness and tolerable noise at low ISO. But they are also a bit odd. It seems that the camera does not apply much correction of the fringing and other things to the JPEGs.
That maybe a reason why it got such a bad critique here:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canong10/page9.aspSo, you are forced to shoot in RAW and do postprocessing in Photoshop.
I opened the test-JPEG from the above article in Camera Raw and really was able to improve the image substantially.
I love CHDK because it gives the opportunity to get everything from the pictures through RAW and manual settings. From shots at low ISO I can get more quality than the camera's built-in digic processor.
Well, I'm quite clueless in the cameraworld at the moment. Sorry, if this gets a bit off-topic.
Which other current Ixus cameras or small-sized Powershot cameras for which CHDK is available can you recommend?