Canon PowerShot A560

The Canon PowerShot A560 was introduced in January of 2007, as one of the lower-end models in the A-series lineup. It's a near-twin upgrade of the A550 model that came onto the market slightly before it, but as we'll see, the Canon A560 actually sports a number of worthwhile enhancements relative to the 550 model. To make the comparison easier, here's a list of enhancements the Canon A560 boasts over the A550

Like the A550, and also an upgrade from earlier low-end models, the Canon A560 has a higher resolution image sensor: 7.1 megapixels, up from 5 megapixels in last year's A530. The 2.5-inch LCD screen also edges out its 1.8" forerunner and the 2.0" screen on the A550. To accommodate the larger file sizes generated by its greater resolution, the A560 is compatible with SDHC memory cards. The A560 is also more energy efficient. With high-capacity rechargeable AA NiMH batteries, you can take up to 1,400 shots with the LCD off, or 550 with the LCD on, impressive numbers by any standard.

The A560’s 4x zoom lens with a 35-140mm 35mm equivalency is a very attractive feature, easily besting the more common 3x zooms. And while many people prefer to simply leave the camera dial permanently on AUTO, this camera’s easy-to-set scene modes are also a help in what might otherwise be challenging conditions.
With its high quality imaging, competent feature set, and wide availability for less than $200, the Canon PowerShot A560 is a great all-around camera, able to meet the needs of a wide range of users. For pros and advanced amateurs, it’s nice to have a pocket-sized alternative to a more bulky digital SLR, yet the price makes this camera an attractive entry for anyone who has been thinking about going digital. As I'll describe below, the camera is not only easy to use, but highly intuitive, making the A560 a great choice for non-technophiles.

Canon PowerShot A560User Report

While it's technically an entry-level camera (only the A550 and A460 are beneath it in the PowerShot lineup), the Canon A560 delivers very respectable performance and image quality. It's a measure of how far the digicam world has come that an "entry level" camera sports a good-quality 4x zoom lens, a 2.5-inch LCD, and usable ISO settings to 800. (The A560 can shoot at ISO 1600, but the image quality there is barely adequate for snapshots. Still, decent-looking 5x7 inch prints at ISO 800 are pretty surprising for a basic, affordable camera these days.)

Pocket Size? Size is often an important consideration for camera users, so it's worth discussing where the Canon A560 fits in the spectrum of available models. I particularly mention size because the features and performance of this camera make it a great all-around, take-anywhere camera, so users are likely to want to pack it along with them wherever they go.

While the Canon A560 isn't as small as Canon's own SD-series models or other subcompact cameras on the market, it does fit fairly well into most pants pockets (unless you're wearing skin-tight jeans), and larger purses. If you really need tiny, look elsewhere, but the A560 is very portable, while avoiding some of the optical and performance trade-offs found in many subcompact models. It's also a good bit cheaper than most subcompacts.

Top controls: Power, mode dial, zoom controls and shutter. A tried-and-true control interface.

User Interface. I've been a fan of Canon's user interface ever since they adopted their current Function menu design, where frequently-used options appear in a menu running down the left side of the screen when you press the "Function" button. (The button in the center of the 4-way controller on the camera's back.) I've always found this menu setup to be fast, effortless, and pretty much self-explanatory.
For more sweeping mode changes, the Canon A560 uses a conventional Mode Dial on the top of the camera body, with options for fully automatic operation, "Manual" mode, five common Scene modes, an SCN setting that offers a number of less-common Scene options, and Movie mode. In full Auto mode, the camera is a pure "point & shoot", you just aim it at your subject, zoom in or out and push the Shutter button, and the camera does the rest. In Auto mode, you can change the size (resolution) of the captured images, turn the flash off or leave it on Auto, select self-timer or normal shooting modes, and tell the camera whether or not you want it to use high ISO (light sensitivity) settings when warranted, but that's about it. The camera chooses every other setting, and generally does a very good job of it. If you're a beginner, you couldn't ask for a more user-friendly experience.

If you're a bit more comfortable with camera settings and options, "Manual" mode gives you more control over things like exposure and white balance, but really experienced shooters may be frustrated with the lack of explicit control over aperture and shutter settings. The camera does always inform you what shutter speed and aperture it's chosen for each shot, but some users (like myself) may wish for more direct control over the exposure process.

If you're willing to make just a small investment in learning the Canon A560's capabilities, a little time spent exploring its rich assortment of Scene modes will be well rewarded. Mode Dial options for Portrait, Landscape, Night Snapshot, Kids & Pets and Indoor (the last indicated by a party-horn icon) automatically configure the camera for the various situations their names suggest. These are a great way for novice photographers to bring back good-looking photos from what otherwise would be tricky shooting situations. By pre-setting things like flash mode, white balance, focus options, etc, the A560's Scene modes simplify things a lot for novice shooters. For less common situations, the SCN position on the mode dial provides access to Night Scene, Foliage, Snow, Beach, Fireworks, and Aquarium options.

The only significant feature missing from earlier Canon models is a stitch-assist mode for making panoramic photos from multiple overlapping exposures. I suspect this was used by relatively few owners, but it's a feature I've always enjoyed playing with myself.
9-point AiAF with Face Detection. Like the rest of its siblings, the A560 uses Canon's excellent 9-point intelligent autofocus system. This means the camera divides the scene into 9 areas, and focuses on what it thinks are the most important parts. (Usually the subjects closest to the camera.) Often, if you don't like the camera's first choice of focus points, simply releasing and lightly pressing the shutter button again will produce another set of points you may like better. It's a fast and convenient way to shoot, and the AiAF system's choice of focus points is right more often than not.

The Canon A560 takes a big step up from the A550 and last year's predecessors though, with the addition of Face Detection to its focusing system. Face Detection is enabled by default, although you can turn it off if you for some reason don't want the camera to seek out faces. Face detection is appearing in more and more cameras from a variety of manufacturers, but Canon's system is among the best. I've personally found face detection to be really handy, since it not only finds and focuses on faces in the image (which are usually what I care most about having sharply focused), but it also uses the faces it's thus identified to help set exposure and flash intensity. It's really pretty amazing to see it in action, the camera puts little white brackets around the face it's focusing on, and you can see the brackets track the face as you move the camera around and zoom in or out. If it finds more than one face in the image, it'll put grey brackets around the secondary ones to indicate that it recognizes them, but won't be using them for the focus determination. It's fairly intelligent about its choice of which face to use too, generally picking the one that's closest to the center of the frame, but also seemingly taking into consideration size, proximity to the camera, etc. The screen shot at right shows Face Detection in action, with the camera pointed at my computer screen with several of our standard "Marti shots" displayed on it. You can see that the camera picked the face in the upper left as the primary one. (I had been moving the camera around a bit, that one was picked when it was nearer the center of the screen, and the camera continued tracking it as it moved away from center.) The other two faces show the grey secondary-face brackets around them. Very slick!

Face Detection in Action: The Canon A560's Face Detection autofocus seemed responsive, and can handle multiple faces in an image.

Responsiveness. All in all, the Canon A560 was pretty responsive in our tests, although it was just a little sluggish in continuous mode. Start-up was pretty quick, capturing the first image just 1.5 seconds after being turned on according to our lab results. There's a modest delay (about 1.6 seconds) between shots in single-shot mode, and the camera takes a bit over 10 seconds to recharge after a full-power flash exposure. That's quite a bit longer than average, even though the flash itself doesn't seem to be any more powerful than those in competing models. In continuous mode, the A560 managed only 1.3 frames/second. Not bad, but we expected more from its Digic III processor. The zoom was reasonably fast and responsive, about what we'd expect for this kind of camera.
Viewfinder. While I'm personally a big believer in optical viewfinders, on a practical basis, I most often use the rear panel LCDs to frame my photos when I'm shooting with digicams. This is partly because I can often see more detail on a nice big LCD screen than in the itty-bitty optical VF, but also because I'm often already looking at the LCD screen to monitor and adjust camera settings anyway.
The Canon A560 offers a 115,000 pixel, 2.5-inch LCD, which takes up much of the camera's rear panel. While 115,000 pixels is fairly low resolution, I didn't really feel it was lacking in detail. (That said though, more pixels would definitely be nice. Hard to argue over, given the A560's price though.) The LCD screen did get a little washed out in bright sunlight but never became totally unusable.

I very often find myself using the Grid overlay on digicams that offer this feature. It makes it easy to keep my verticals and horizontals aligned as they should be, something I find surprisingly easy to forget about when I'm quickly snapping photos. Having an alignment grid displayed on-screen is a handy reminder, not to mention a useful tool for getting the alignment just right. The A560's grid is easy to turn on from the main shooting menu, just scroll down to the Disp. Overlay option. There's also an option to show a mask that trims the image top and bottom to give a 3:2 aspect ratio. This lets you see what part of the image will fit into a 4x6 inch print. The screen shot at left shows both features in play.

Power. The Canon A560 is powered by a pair of AA batteries, convenient if you need to find power in remote parts of the world. It's also a great idea to buy a pair of the (very expensive) Lithium AA cells sold by Eveready. They have a very long shelf-life and pack lots of power, so you can just stash a couple of them in your camera bag, and always have a backup power source at hand. (They're too expensive for routine use, but just great for this sort of emergency backup.)

Battery/Card door: Under the battery door, you'll find the battery compartment, the SD card slot, and the backup battery sled. (Shot from A550, A560 is identical.)

The trade-off with AA cells is the A560's bulkiness in comparison to some of Canon's Digital ELPH cameras, but there are a lot of are folks who will buy nothing but AA-powered cameras, avoiding custom battery packs like the plague. If you're one of them, the A560 is for you. (Do get a couple of sets of high-capacity NiMH rechargeable cells and a good charger for them though, you'll save many times the cost of batteries + charger over the life of the camera.) One piece of good news though, is how sparingly the A560 sips power: Even normal alkaline batteries last a surprisingly long time in it.

ISO 1600? High ISO (high light sensitivity) is a feature being touted by many manufacturers these days, but it's often accompanied by image quality ranging from bad to unbelievably awful. The Canon A560 sports ISO settings as high as 1600, and does better than many compact cameras at that setting. That said though, don't expect to be making poster-size from your ISO 1600 shots. At ISO 1600, color suffers somewhat, and even 4x6 inch prints show very noticeable grain. A grainy picture is perhaps better than one blurred by too much subject or camera motion, but as a consumer, you need to take really high ISO ratings for compact digicams with a large grain of salt. (If you really need high-ISO performance, bite the bullet and buy a digital SLR: The worst DSLR does way better than the best consumer digicam at high-ISO shooting.)

At ISO 800 though, image quality improves quite a bit, to the point that most users will likely find 5x7 inch prints quite acceptable, and even 8x10 inch ones will probably be fine to display on a wall, shelf or other location where people aren't likely to walk up and squint at them at close range. This is quite an achievement compared to what was possible just a couple of years ago. Don't get me wrong, images at ISO 800 definitely have noise in them, but many users will find the results quite acceptable for snapshots and even modest enlargements.
At low ISO settings, shots from the Canon A560 show excellent color and a lot of detail. You can easily make 13x19 inch prints from them, if you have a printer that can handle paper that large.

Speaking of color, the Canon A560 generally did well with its white balance: While Auto wasn't perfect with our indoor test subject, it wasn't at all bad (some people would prefer the amount of warmth it left in the images), while Incandescent and Manual both did an excellent job of handling the very warm household incandescent lighting. (Most homes in the US use incandescent or warm-white compact fluorescent lighting, very warm-hued light sources that are very hard for many digital cameras to handle properly.)

Summary. The Canon PowerShot A560 is an excellent basic digital camera for all-around usage. While not as small as many subcompacts, it fits in most pants pockets or larger purses, and avoids some of the optical, image quality, and performance trade-offs that are often found in subcompact models. It offers a lot of capability (and great looking images) for the money, and a range of features that should suit beginning through intermediate photographers very well. All in all, it's a great entry-level camera, but one with at least some features to grow into as your photographic skills mature.

If you have just a little more money, you might consider the A570 IS, which adds a few higher-end features from the ELPH series in about the same form factor, as well as an image-stabilized lens for sharper shots under dim lighting. If you're just looking for a simple, good-performing digital camera to get started with though, the Canon A560 is hard to beat.

The Canon PowerShot A560 is another great little camera from Canon. While classed and priced as an entry-level camera, the A560 takes great, high-resolution shots, has a nice 4x zoom lens, and is quite easy to use. The user interface is clean and uncluttered, the combination of no-nonsense mode dial and simple Function menu making it easy to get to the functions you'll use most frequently. There's also a very good movie mode for collecting "video snapshots" at quality levels as high as 640x480 pixels and 30 frames/second. The biggest plus over its little brother the A550, though, is its Face-Detection autofocus system, a very handy feature when photographing people, and one that worked very well in our use of the camera. To those of us who've been dealing with digital cameras for a while, it's amazing that an under-$200 entry level camera can capture enough detail to make beautiful 13 x 19 inch prints (let alone with all the 560's other features as well), but that's exactly what the Canon A560 does. This is a great little all-around camera, at a great price, an easy Dave's Pick as one of the better cameras on the market in its price range

Canon PowerShot A610 Digital Camera

Fully-extended, the 4x optical zoom increases the camera's depth by about 1.5 inches. Surrounding the lens is a metal and plastic ring that covers the accessory lens mount. A small button on the lower right side (as viewed from the front) releases the ring. Add-on converter lenses offered by Canon include the .7x WC-DC58N wide-angle converter ($199) and 1.75x TC-DC58N tele-converter ($149), plus the LA-DC58F conversion lens adapter ($25) required to attach the two accessory lenses onto the A610. Adding the tele-adapter boosts the A610 telephoto capability to a 35mm equivalent of a 275mm telephoto lens. Also on the A610's front panel are its microphone, small viewfinder window, fixed electronic flash, and a small window for the combination auto-focus assist beam, red-eye reduction lamp, and self-timer indicator.

Looking at the A610's right side (as viewed from the rear) you'll find a substantial-looking wrist strap lug, plus covers for the camera's output connectors and the card slot. The top cover is a rubber square that you have to pry off with your fingernail. Beneath it hides the USB 2.0 port, audio/composite video terminal, and a plug for an optional AC adapter. To gain access to the SD Card slot, you push the door toward the back of the camera with your thumb and then swing the door open. It's easy enough to operate, but the small plastic tabs that hold the door in place could be broken off if you are not careful.

Introduction

The PowerShot A610 sits at the top of Canon's A-series--a lineup distinguished by cameras that are fairly compact, relatively inexpensive and equipped with a robust set of exposure controls. The A610 is no exception: priced under $300, it has a 5.0-megapixel CCD--ideal for photographers who like especially large prints or who frequently crop their photos. With exposure controls that range from full-automatic, snap-shot simplicity to full-manual creativity, the A610 is a good choice for a family with widely differing photography skills. Given its low price and breadth of features, it should also be attractive to budding shooters on tight budgets who want to advance their photographic skills.

Camera Overview

With a silver-metallic case and stylish shape, the A610 is an impressive step up from Canon's A95, which started out at $400 when it was introduced a little over a year ago. Now, for $100 less, you get the same 5.0 megapixel resolution and a lot more zoom. Both cameras are distinguished by their fold-out LCD panels, but the A610's is 2 inches, versus the A95's 1.8 inches. Though that may not sound like much of a difference, it's quite noticeable when you look at the screens side-by-side. For anyone who loves photography, the fold-out screen is worth the cost it adds to the camera. Rotate it out and down, and you can get better shots in crowds by holding the camera over your head and looking up at the LCD. For shy subjects, you can rotate the LCD up and hold the camera at waist level, when most subjects do not think you are actually taking shots. And if you love to have yourself in the shot, facing the LCD forward lets you make sure you have not accidently left out half of your head from the photo.

Calling the A610 compact would be a kindness. Though the mid-range A510 and A520 saw a reduction in size, the higher end of the A-Series seems to get a bit larger with each generation. The A610 (and its twin the A610, priced about $100 less) is a little bulky compared to past models at 4.1 by 2.6 by 1.9 inches. The large right-handed grip adds a lot to the camera's size--necessary to accommodate the camera's four AA batteries that give it such excellent battery life. It makes the A610 too big to fit in anything smaller than a coat pocket or small carry bag, but it does give your hand a solid purchase on the camera and pushes the shutter release and zoom control well out in front, where your trigger finger comfortably rests.

Every new generation of camera brings a few ergonomic changes--some for the better, some not. The A610 mode dial is one example of an improvement. It's higher and more textured than the dial on the A95, which gives your thumb a better purchase when changing modes. Canon also spread the display, menu, exposure compensation, and transfer buttons further apart, making for more accurate use of the controls when you are in a hurry.

Not an improvement, but still one of the better features in Canon's digital cameras is the Function button, which now resides in the center of the four-way thumb buttons. Pressing the Function button pops up a concise, well-organized menu of key exposure controls on the A610's LCD screen. It lets you adapt to changing scenes and lighting conditions quickly and intuitively. On the other hand, Canon stuck with the sliding record/playback switch. It's a bit more cumbersome to quickly go back and review photos than with the quick-review button you find on most modern digital cameras.

With the A610, the zoom range jumped from the A95's 3X to 4X. The A610 focal length starts at the 35mm film equivalent of 35mm--a basic wide-angle length, and it can accept wide-angle and telephoto accessory lenses--almost unheard of in a camera in this price range.

Exposure modes in the Image Zone include Portrait, Landscape, Night Scene, Stitch Assist, and Movie. Portrait, Night Scene, and Landscape all make automatic camera adjustments to optimize settings for specific shooting conditions. The Portrait mode uses a large aperture setting to focus on the subject, while maintaining an out-of-focus background. Landscape mode slows the shutter speed and maximizes depth of field with a small aperture setting. Night Scene mode illuminates your subject with flash and uses a slow shutter speed to evenly expose the background. The Scene setting accesses several more specialized preset shooting modes, which include Foliage, Snow, Beach, Fireworks, Underwater, Indoor, Kids & Pets, and Night Snapshot, all of which set up the camera for very specific conditions.

The Stitch-Assist mode is Canon's answer to panorama shooting, in which you capture multiple, horizontal, overlapping images. They are then "stitched" together on a computer using Canon's bundled software package or other image editing software. Proper overlap is critical for a successful panorama, and in the A610 you accomplish this by lining up a portion of the image framed in the LCD with a sort of ghost image from the previously recorded shot. It works well in moderate light, but the ghost image can be hard to see in full sunlight. Movie mode in the A610 is significantly better than its predecessor's. You are no longer limited to 30-second clips at 640 by 480 pixels (and only 10 frames per second). You can now shoot at 640 by 480 at 30fps until you run out of room on your memory card (if you purchase a high-speed SD card - we used a Kingston 133x SD card to test the camera with). The higher frame rate should produce better movies when you're shooting fast action. Like most digital cameras, the A610 doesn't let you use the optical zoom while recording a movie; however, you can use the digital zoom.

Canon's bundled photo application is an adequate, if basic, package for managing, downloading, and editing your photos. It does have one interesting utility called Remote Shooting, which, when you connect your camera to a computer via its USB cable, lets you change the camera's settings from a window on the computer as well as let you press a virtual shutter button. The images are then immediately transferred to the computer. It would be a handy feature for photographers who do indoor macro shooting.
Canon's documentation for the A610 (and A610) is relatively well-organized and comprehensive. There is a basic user guide to get you started, quickly, and a more detailed book that covers all of the camera's many functions. The only knock is that the descriptions for some of the more esoteric features are a little cryptic. (And we really dislike having information spread out between two separate manuals.

Design

Canon PowerShot A620 Digital Camera

Design

The A620 and its 5-megapixel twin the A610 (around $270) are most closely related to Canon's A520, which was released in February 2005. They have a similar shape and size, including a solid right-hand grip, plus a 4x optical zoom that covers the 35mm equivalent of 35mm to 140mm, the same shutter speed range, most of the same exposure controls.

Introduction

The PowerShot A620 sits at the top of Canon's A-series--a lineup distinguished by cameras that are fairly compact, relatively inexpensive and equipped with a robust set of exposure controls. The A620 is no exception: priced under $400, it has a powerful 7.1-megapixel CCD--ideal for photographers who like especially large prints or who frequently crop their photos. With exposure controls that range from full-automatic, snap-shot simplicity to full-manual creativity, the A620 is a good choice for a family with widely differing photography skills. Given its low price and breadth of features, it should also be attractive to budding shooters on tight budgets who want to advance their photographic skills.

Camera Overview

With a silver-metallic case and stylish shape, the A620 is an impressive step up from Canon's A95, which also started out at $400 when it was introduced a little over a year ago. But the A620's improvements are far more than skin deep, starting out with its 7.1-megapixel CCD--a significant jump from the A95's 5-megapixels. Both cameras are distinguished by their fold-out LCD panels, but the A620's is 2 inches, versus the A95's 1.8 inches. Though that may not sound like much of a difference, it's quite noticeable when you look at the screens side-by-side. For anyone who loves photography, the fold-out screen is worth the cost it adds to the camera. Rotate it out and down, and you can get better shots in crowds by holding the camera over your head and looking up at the LCD. For shy subjects, you can rotate the LCD up and hold the camera at waist level, when most subjects do not think you are actually taking shots. And if you love to have yourself in the shot, facing the LCD forward lets you make sure you have not accidently left out half of your head from the photo.

Calling the A620 compact would be a kindness. Though the mid-range A510 and A520 saw a reduction in size, the higher end of the A-Series seems to get a bit larger with each generation. The A620 (and it's twin the A610, priced about $100 less) is a little bulky compared to past models at 4.1 by 2.6 by 1.9 inches. The large right-handed grip adds a lot to the camera's size--necessary to accommodate the camera's four AA batteries that give it such excellent battery life. It makes the A620 too big to fit in anything smaller than a coat pocket or small carry bag, but it does give your hand a solid purchase on the camera and pushes the shutter release and zoom control well out in front, where your trigger finger comfortably rests.

Every new generation of camera brings a few ergonomic changes--some for the better, some not. The A620 mode dial is one example of an improvement. It's higher and more textured than the dial on the A95, which gives your thumb a better purchase when changing modes. Canon also spread the display, menu, exposure compensation, and transfer buttons further apart, making for more accurate use of the controls when you are in a hurry.

Not an improvement, but still one of the better features in Canon's digital cameras is the Function button, which now resides in the center of the four-way thumb buttons. Pressing the Function button pops up a concise, well-organized menu of key exposure controls on the A620's LCD screen. It lets you adapt to changing scenes and lighting conditions quickly and intuitively. On the other hand, Canon stuck with the sliding record/playback switch. It's a bit more cumbersome to quickly go back and review photos than with the quick-review button you find on most modern digital cameras.

With the A620, the zoom range jumped from the A95's 3X to 4X. The A620 focal length starts at the 35mm film equivalent of 35mm--a basic wide-angle length, and it can accept wide-angle and telephoto accessory lenses--almost unheard of in a camera in this price range.

Exposure modes in the Image Zone include Portrait, Landscape, Night Scene, Stitch Assist, and Movie. Portrait, Night Scene, and Landscape all make automatic camera adjustments to optimize settings for specific shooting conditions. The Portrait mode uses a large aperture setting to focus on the subject, while maintaining an out-of-focus background. Landscape mode slows the shutter speed and maximizes depth of field with a small aperture setting. Night Scene mode illuminates your subject with flash and uses a slow shutter speed to evenly expose the background. The Scene setting accesses several more specialized preset shooting modes, which include Foliage, Snow, Beach, Fireworks, Underwater, Indoor, Kids & Pets, and Night Snapshot, all of which set up the camera for very specific conditions.

The Stitch-Assist mode is Canon's answer to panorama shooting, in which you capture multiple, horizontal, overlapping images. They are then "stitched" together on a computer using Canon's bundled software package or other image editing software. Proper overlap is critical for a successful panorama, and in the A620 you accomplish this by lining up a portion of the image framed in the LCD with a sort of ghost image from the previously recorded shot. It works well in moderate light, but the ghost image can be hard to see in full sunlight. Movie mode in the A620 is significantly better than its predecessor's. You are no longer limited to 30-second clips at 640 by 480 pixels (and only 10 frames per second). You can now shoot at 640 by 480 at 30fps until you run out of room on your memory card (if you purchase a high-speed SD card - we used a Kingston 133x SD card to test the camera with). The higher frame rate should produce better movies when you're shooting fast action. Like most digital cameras, the A620 doesn't let you use the optical zoom while recording a movie; however, you can use the digital zoom.

Canon's bundled photo application is an adequate, if basic, package for managing, downloading, and editing your photos. It does have one interesting utility called Remote Shooting, which, when you connect your camera to a computer via its USB cable, lets you change the camera's settings from a window on the computer as well as let you press a virtual shutter button. The images are then immediately transferred to the computer. It would be a handy feature for photographers who do indoor macro shooting.

Canon's documentation for the A620 (and A610) is relatively well-organized and comprehensive. There is a basic user guide to get you started, quickly, and a more detailed book that covers all of the camera's many functions. The only knock is that the descriptions for some of the more esoteric features are a little cryptic. (And we really dislike having information spread out between two separate manuals.)

Though encased in a plastic shell, the A620's body looks sturdy and durable; and the large 2-inch LCD is attached to the camera body by a beefy hinge that should hold up to a lot of use. At 12.4 ounces with its four AA batteries and a memory card, this model is a good four ounces heavier than the A520. But that's still light enough to easily carry in a small bag or large coat pocket. The A620 is a bit larger than its predecessor: 4.1 by 2.60 by 1.9 inches--too big to fit in a shirt or pants pocket.
Fully-extended, the 4x optical zoom increases the camera's depth by about 1.5 inches. Surrounding the lens is a metal and plastic ring that covers the accessory lens mount. A small button on the lower right side (as viewed from the front) releases the ring. Add-on converter lenses offered by Canon include the .7x WC-DC58N wide-angle converter ($199) and 1.75x TC-DC58N tele-converter ($149), plus the LA-DC58F conversion lens adapter ($25) required to attach the two accessory lenses onto the A620. Adding the tele-adapter boosts the A620 telephoto capability to a 35mm equivalent of a 275mm telephoto lens. Also on the A620's front panel are its microphone, small viewfinder window, fixed electronic flash, and a small window for the combination auto-focus assist beam, red-eye reduction lamp, and self-timer indicator.

Looking at the A620's right side (as viewed from the rear) you'll find a substantial-looking wrist strap lug, plus covers for the camera's output connectors and the card slot. The top cover is a rubber square that you have to pry off with your fingernail. Beneath it hides the USB 2.0 port, audio/composite video terminal, and a plug for an optional AC adapter. To gain access to the SD Card slot, you push the door toward the back of the camera with your thumb and then swing the door open. It's easy enough to operate, but the small plastic tabs that hold the door in place could be broken off if you are not careful.

The top of the A620 is dominated by the large, easily-operated mode dial and a large shutter button that is nicely placed at the front edge of the camera's grip--right where your trigger finger naturally falls. The zoom control surrounds the shutter button; a ring with a substantial bump on its front edge, this arrangement makes it quick and easy to set your focal length and snap your photo. The mode dial sits on the top panel's back edge, right where your thumb wants to find it. Canon enlarged the top-mounted on/off switch with the A620: instead of the A520's small dot, its now a oblong button that should be easier to use. The camera's monaural speaker sits between the shutter release and the mode dial.

Camera Operation

While the A620's user interface may seem slightly cryptic at first approach, it's actually quite efficient. Most camera functions are controlled externally, and a few of the external control buttons serve multiple functions. When you do need to enter the LCD menu system, navigation is straightforward with only two main pages of options. The A620's external controls cut down on the amount of time spent searching menu screens, and I particularly like the "Function" menu which became standard on Canon digital camera models in the 2003 model year. Combined with the instruction manual, the A620's user interface shouldn't take more than an hour to get comfortable with

Record Mode LCD Display: In Record mode, the A620's LCD reports various exposure settings, including camera modes, the resolution and quality settings, number of available images, etc. Half-pressing the Shutter button reports the aperture and shutter speed settings, in all modes except Manual. (Aperture and shutter speed are displayed continuously in Manual mode, whether the Shutter button is pressed or not.) Pressing the Display button cycles through the available display modes, including the image with information, no display at all, and the image only.

Playback Mode LCD Display: In Playback mode, the LCD reports the image series number, resolution and quality setting, file name, and the date and time of image capture. Pressing the Display button once pulls up an enhanced information display, with a histogram for checking the exposure. A third press cancels the information overlay. The telephoto side of the zoom toggle lets you zoom in on a portion of the image, while the wide-angle side backs you out again, and lets you step out to an "index" view of captured images, displayed as nine thumbnails at a time. Zooming out one step past the point at which the index display appears adds a "jump" bar to the bottom of the screen, letting you jump forward or back nine images at a time, rather than scrolling from each image to the next individually.

Print Connection: When you connect the Canon A620 to a PictBridge, Canon Direct Print, or Bubble Jet Direct-compatible printer, a new menu option is enabled, allowing easy print to a number of basic paper sizes, all without a computer. A special icon appears in the upper left hand corner, with the word SET right next to it, telling you that to adjust settings, you should press the Set button. You can select not only the size and type of paper, but you can also crop the pictures right in the camera. If you only print one size, full frame, you need only press the Print/Share button and printing of the current image begins immediately. (The screenshot at right is actually from a Canon SD500, but the screens on the A620 are nearly identical.)

Canon PowerShot A630

Shows lens extension at full telephoto.

LCD is hinged on the left, all the controls are right under your thumb on the right.

In shooting position, the camera is very comfortable to hold.

Canon PowerShot A630 Overview

The Canon PowerShot A630 couples an 8.0-megapixel CCD imaging sensor with a 4x optical zoom lens that offers a 35mm-equivalent focal range of 35-140mm, a moderate wide-angle to a somewhat more generous telephoto than you'll find on most compact cameras. Maximum apertures vary from f/2.8 to f/4.1 across the zoom range. The A630's sensor yields an ISO range equivalent to 80 to 800, while shutter speeds from 1/2,500 to 15 seconds are possible.

Designed with ease of use in mind, the Canon A630 offers both a range of features that make it approachable to beginners, as well as the ability to exert more control over the photographic process. For the former category of users, there's a fully automatic mode, and a generous selection of thirteen scene modes. For the latter, you'll find Manual, and Aperture Shutter Priority exposures possible, plus preset, or manual White Balance, and three Metering modes. A VGA-or-below Movie mode captures videos at a maximum of 30 frames per second, for up to one hour (or one gigabyte) per clip.

The Canon A630's USB connection allows easy offload of images from the SD, or MMC card to a Mac, or PC -- and unlike some manufacturers who are still clinging to the older USB 1.1/2.0 Full Speed standard, Canon has adopted a much swifter USB 2.0 High Speed interface in the Canon A630. For users without a computer (or those who like to make quick prints without the hassle of touching their PC), you can bypass the extra step completely, and print directly from the PowerShot A630 to a Canon, or other PictBridge-enabled printer via the same fast USB connection

Though it has a relatively large 2.5 inch LCD, Canon kept a real image optical viewfinder in the A630's design. Not only can optical viewfinders help to save battery life by turning off the LCD display, they're also useful when ambient light makes it tough to see many LCDs properly. Power comes from four AA batteries, and Canon includes single-use alkaline disposables in the product bundle. Also included with the Canon A630 is a not-so-generous 16MB MultiMediaCard. If you don't already have some, you'll want to purchase some rechargeable batteries, and a larger flash card along with the camera.

Canon PowerShot A630 User Report

It seems to me that if you can't find a Canon that matches your requirements, you just haven't looked very carefully. The Canon lineup is so rich with options it's often hard to tell one model from another. The Canon A630 might, for example, be easily confused with the A640, except it has an 8.0-megapixel sensor and doesn't support remote capture. Neither of which strike me as a problem. Especially when the savings amounts to $100.
Canon shares my opinion, it seems, because the manual for both models is identical. Or I should say the "manuals" because you need a set (the Basic, the Advanced, the Printing manuals). The A640 is black while the Canon A630 is silver, but the bodies are otherwise identical.

It's rather astonishing you can get so much camera for $300 these days -- especially considering its extensive exposure options. The Canon A630 is a classic.

Design. And there's some sweet stuff in these bodies, too. A large 2.5-inch LCD is always welcome, but these are what Canon calls Variable LCDs (articulated ones, that is, that swing out and rotate up or down so you can compose a shot with the camera over your head or down low). Canon has also included an optical viewfinder on the A630, which despite its approximate rendering of the scene is indispensable when the glare of the sun makes it impossible to see what's on the LCD. Although here again, having an LCD you can move independently of the lens means you can often eliminate that glare.

As with other A-Series Canons, the A630 has a grip you can get your hands on thanks to the four AA batteries it uses for power. Although it's substantial, the grip isn't too fat to keep the Canon A630 out of your pocket, although I tended to prefer to simply swing it from my wrist so it was ready for action.

The Canon A630 doesn't cheat on exposure options either. There's green Auto for those times when you have other things on your mind, and Program when you want to have at least EV control over exposure. But there's also Shutter and Aperture Priority modes. And -- drum roll -- a full Manual mode as well. Add a Custom mode to save a special configuration and there's really little you can't do with this digicam.

On the other end of the Canon A630's Mode dial, you have Movie, Panorama, and Special Scene modes. There's also the primary Scene modes: Portrait, Landscape, and Night Scene

The controls and menu system have, by now, evolved into a package that's really comfortable to use once you learn how to play the game. In Auto, you don't worry about the buttons at all. In Program, just hit the Canon A630's EV button and change the exposure with the Left or Right arrow keys. Shutter and Aperture Priority modes use those arrow keys to adjust their values, too. Manual uses the EV button to toggle between aperture and shutter speed, both adjusted with those same arrow keys.

In short, this is a well-design machine.
Display/Viewfinder. The 2.5-inch LCD is large by any standard but it only displays 115,000 pixels. The big news, however, is that you can swing the Canon A630's LCD out from the back of the camera and twist it up or down. You can even flip it back so it pops right back into the rear panel as if it were an ordinary LCD.

To illustrate the amazing angles you can shoot from without even twisting your neck, I set the Canon A630's LCD so I could look down at it while the camera poked its nose into the corner of a bookcase where it could see a few titles in Macro mode. To shoot this shot with an ordinary LCD, you'd have to put your eyeball in line with the back of the camera. You'd be squatting, that is, with your head bent back.

More typically, you just want to shoot from a lower or higher angle than eye level. After all, everyone knows what things look like from eye level. But drop the Canon A630 down to floor level, angling the LCD up so you don't have to lie flat on the floor, and you'll get some marvelous shots of children at play in the low-rise world they inhabit. And when you're straining your neck to look over the crowd in front of you, just raise your arm with the Canon A630's LCD angled down to get an unobstructed shot from above.

On of my favorite photo tricks is to shoot at angles other than eye level. An articulated LCD makes this easy to remember and fun to do.
Performance. I'm sensitive to slow startups and reluctant shutdowns. They actually change my behavior. If they're really slow, I leave the camera behind. If they're annoyingly slow, I leave the power on and hope the thing wakes up from sleep fast. But I prefer to manage my battery life by shutting down when I won't be taking a shot for a while and turning the camera on just before I want to shoot.

The Canon A630 is, I'm happy to say, responsive enough that I can do that. I never seemed to miss a shot waiting for it to start up and I certainly never hesitated to shut it down for fear that starting it up again would take too long.
Shutter lag is increasingly a thing of the past and the Canon A630 is responsive here, too. I didn't happen to shoot any action shots with it, but from the time I decided to press the Shutter button and the actual trip of the shutter were not far from simultaneous.
Shooting. I took the Canon A630 on two outings. The first was a bike ride up Twin Peaks to shoot my usual cityscapes. It was an usually clear Fall day, so the A630 took some fabulous shots, among the best I've gotten there.
But one of the things I like to try up there is digital zoom. Canon's digital zoom isn't bad at all, a far cry from the old resamplings that led Dave to warn against ever using it. It may not be quite as satisfying as a few other companies manage (you can tell a digital zoom shot from a telephoto one), but don't feel like you have to avoid it.

Maybe it was the clearness of the air, but my shots of very distant objects came out much better than I'm used to. The Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge are usually disappointing. They're flat here (nothing Auto Levels can't fix in a mouse click) but they fill the frame with detail.
You see this particularly in the three-shot sequence that starts at wide angle and includes the rock wall right in front of me. There just happens to be an accommodating post right there that lets me steady the camera without hauling a tripod up the hill. From that same position, the next shot shows the full telephoto crop. And the last in the sequence shows full digital zoom. That's really quite a range at 16x (4x optical with 4x digital) and, as the bridge shots show, on a sunny day you don't need image stabilization to enjoy it.

The other shoot was a walk through the Berkeley on a warm spring afternoon. None of the street scenes enjoyed much reflection or setup time. It was turn and fire, turn and fire. The campus scenes are familiar shots to me but, again, I didn't linger.

Nice range of tones, avoiding blown highlights and plugged up shadows

What's interesting to me about these is that despite the high contrast of the autumn light, I don't see the usual blown highlights and oversaturation common with many consumer digicams. They look very much like what I saw. And I didn't fiddle with the Canon A630. You'll notice these are all 0.0 EV.

Now that's a camera. You see a shot you like, you fire it up, compose the scene on the LCD and shoot. Take a second or two to review it, smile and shut it down as you continue on. See two or three things you like, leave it on, compose and shoot. When you get home, take a more careful look on your monitor and be even more pleased with the results. The Canon A630 knew what it was doing even when I didn't have time to check. I got great shots with little effort, all the time.

Canon PowerShot A640

The lens is fully extended. I call that a black body, but you may discern a very dark gray.

Back. The control layout is simple (not too many buttons) and easily managed with just your thumb. Luke was particularly happy to see that the Mode switch toggles between Playback and Record only, with Video moved to the Mode dial. In this shot, I flipped the LCD around so it looks like any other digicam.

Battery/Card Compartment. The hinge is right next to the plastic tripod mount, but it's very easy to access either the card or batteries.

Canon PowerShot A640

Canon PowerShot A640 Overview
by Mike PasiniHands-On Preview: 11/15/06Full Review: 12/21/06
The Canon PowerShot A640 couples a 10 megapixel CCD imager sensor with a 4x optical zoom lens that offers a 35mm-equivalent focal range of 35 to 140mm. That's a moderate wide-angle that reaches to a somewhat more generous telephoto than you'll find on most compact cameras. Maximum apertures vary from f/2.8 to f/4.1 across the zoom range. The A640's sensor yields an ISO range of 80 to 800, with shutter speeds of 1/2,500 to 15 seconds.

Designed with ease of use in mind, the Canon A640 offers both a range of features that make it approachable to beginners, as well as the ability to exert more control over the photographic process. For the former category of users, there's a fully automatic mode, and a generous selection of 13 Scene modes. For the latter, you'll find Manual, and Aperture/Shutter Priority exposures possible, plus preset, or manual White Balance, and three Metering modes. A VGA-or-below Movie mode captures videos at a maximum of 30 frames per second, for up to one hour (or one gigabyte) per clip.

A USB connection allows easy offload of images from the SD, or MMC card to a Mac, or PC -- and unlike some manufacturers who are still clinging to the older USB 1.1/2.0 Full Speed standard, Canon has adopted a much swifter USB 2.0 High Speed interface in the Canon A640. For users without a computer (or those who like to make quick prints without the hassle of touching their PC), you can bypass the extra step completely, and print directly from the PowerShot A640 to a Canon, or other PictBridge-enabled printer via the same USB connection.
Though the Canon A640 has a relatively large 2.5 inch LCD, Canon retained a real image optical viewfinder in the A640's design. Not only can optical viewfinders save battery life if you turn off the LCD display, but they're also useful when ambient light makes it tough to see many LCDs properly. Power comes from four AA batteries, and Canon includes single-use alkaline disposables in the product bundle. Also included with the Canon A640 is a 32MB MultiMediaCard -- perhaps slightly larger than average, but still not sufficient for more than a handful of photos at the highest resolution and lowest compression. If you don't already have some, you'll want to purchase some rechargeable batteries and a larger flash card along with the camera.

Canon PowerShot A640 User Report

The Canon lineup is so rich with options it's often hard to tell one model from another. If you want a camera powered by AA batteries, Canon's A-Series is the one for you. The A-Series digicams all use batteries you can find anywhere, and give you a decent grip, too. Yes, they're a bit bigger than the Digital ELPHs, but their heft makes them more stable for handheld shots, and they have more exposure options.

But even within the A-Series, you have options. The Canon A640 might, for example, be easily confused with the A630, except it has a 10 megapixel sensor, a black body, support for remote capture, and costs $100 more. But it shares the same lens, controls and body design, including a variable LCD you can swivel for a more comfortable view of your subject.

Design. A large 2.5-inch LCD is always welcome, but the Canon A640's is what Canon calls a Variable LCD (an articulated one, that is, that swings out and rotates up or down so you can compose a shot with the camera over your head or below your belt). Canon has also included an optical viewfinder, which despite its approximate rendering of the scene is indispensable when the glare of the sun makes it impossible to see what's on the Canon A640's LCD. Although here again, having an LCD you can move independently of the lens means you can often eliminate that glare.

As with other A-Series Canons, the A640 has a grip you can get your hands on thanks to the four AA batteries it uses for power. Although it's substantial, the grip isn't too fat to keep the A640 out of your pocket, although I tended to prefer to simply swing it from my wrist so it was ready for action.

The Canon A640 doesn't cheat on exposure options either. There's green Auto for those times when you have other things on your mind. And Program when you want to have at least EV control over exposure. But there are also Shutter and Aperture Priority modes. And -- drum roll -- a full Manual mode as well. Add a Custom mode to save a special configuration and there's really little you can't do with this digicam.
On the other end of the Canon A640's Mode dial, you have Movie, Panorama and Special Scene modes. There're also the primary Scene modes Portrait, Landscape, and Night Scene.

The controls and menu system have, by now, evolved into a package that's really comfortable to use once you learn how to play the game. In Auto, you don't worry about the buttons at all. In Program, just hit the EV button and change the exposure with the Left or Right arrow keys. Shutter and Aperture Priority modes use those arrow keys to adjust their values, too. The Canon A640's Manual mode uses the EV button to toggle between aperture and shutter speed, both adjusted with those same arrow keys.
In short, the Canon A640 is a well-designed machine.

Display/Viewfinder. The Canon A640's 2.5-inch LCD is large by any standard, but it only displays 115,000 pixels. The big news, however, is that you can swing the LCD out from the back of the camera and twist it up or down, or even face it forward for self-portraits. You can even flip it back so it pops right back into the rear panel as if it were an ordinary LCD. And if you tend to scratch things, you'll be happy to know you can close this LCD with its back facing outward to protect it.
Once you've used an articulated LCD, you'll never want to be without one

Often you just want to shoot from a lower or higher angle than eye level. After all, everyone knows what things look like from eye level. But drop the Canon A640 down to floor level, angling the LCD up so you don't have to lie flat on the floor, and you'll get some marvelous shots of children at play in the low-rise world they inhabit. And when you're straining your neck to look over the crowd in front of you, just raise your arm with the LCD angled down to get an unobstructed shot from above.

One of my favorite photo tricks is to shoot at angles other than eye level. An articulated LCD makes this easy to remember and fun to do.
Luke, who shot the lab test shots with the Canon A640, didn't like the optical viewfinder. But kudos to Canon for including one. The sun can be just too bright to see the LCD when you've got the camera pointed in the right direction. Even an inaccurate optical viewfinder will give you some idea where your subject is floating in the frame.

Performance. I'm sensitive to slow startups and reluctant shutdowns. They actually change my behavior. If they're really slow, I leave the camera behind. If they're annoyingly slow, I leave the power on and hope the thing wakes up from sleep fast. But I prefer to manage my battery life by shutting down when I won't be taking a shot for a while and turning the camera on just before I want to shoot.
The Canon A640 is, I'm happy to say, responsive enough that I can do that. I never seemed to miss a shot waiting for it to start up and I certainly never hesitated to shut it down for fear starting it up again would take too long.
Shutter lag is increasingly a thing of the past, and the Canon A640 is responsive here, too. I didn't happen to shoot any action shots with it, but from the time I decided to press the Shutter button and the actual trip of the shutter were not far from simultaneous.
And, as Luke observed, the cycle times are really pretty good. The Canon A640 clears the buffer after every shot in every mode.
Shooting. I took the Canon A640 on a bike ride up Twin Peaks with the A630 to shoot my usual cityscapes. It was an usually clear Fall day, so the A640 took some fabulous shots, among the best I've gotten there. If you want to know the difference in resolution between the 10 megapixel A640 and 8 megapixel A630, just study these shots.
One of the things I like to try up there is digital zoom. Canon's digital zoom isn't bad at all, a far cry from the old resamplings that led Dave to warn against ever using the thing. It may not be quite as satisfying as a few other companies manage (you can tell a digital zoom shot from a telephoto one), but don't feel like you have to avoid it.
Maybe it was the clarity of the air, but my shots of very distant objects came out much better than I'm used to. The Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge are usually disappointing. They're flat here (nothing Auto Levels can't fix in a mouse click) but they fill the frame with detail.

Canon PowerShot A700

The A700 Fully Extended

Canon PowerShot A700 Overview

By: Mike Pasini and Dave EtchellsReview posted: 05/31/2006
Canon is continually expanding its PowerShot A-series cameras, even as they reduce some of their other lines. The new A700, announced just before Spring PMA 2006, is the first step in yet another expansion of the A-series to a new level. This time the expansion is more than about pixels, but includes a longer lens than any A-series previously, reaching to 6x, or an equivalent of 35 to 210mm, making the PowerShot A700 excellent for all-purpose photography.

The Canon A700 also includes a respectable 6.0 megapixel sensor, more than enough for tack-sharp 11x14 inch prints. Like most of the other cameras announced at the same time, the A700 also includes an ISO range from 80 to 800. ISO 800 should be very good for indoor low-light shots.

Like nearly every other Canon A-series camera, the PowerShot A700 is replete with features to make the camera easier to use. You can just lock it into full Auto mode to point and shoot, or just turn the dial for gradually more and more control. Fourteen Scene modes allow you to look like a pro while the camera tunes its settings for certain situations, like Portrait, Snow, Beach, and even a setting for Fireworks.

An advanced movie mode allows you to capture TV-quality 640x480 or 320x 240 videos at 30 frames per second with the Canon A700.

A fast USB 2.0 connection allows easy offload of images from the SD or MMC card to a Mac or PC. You can even bypass the computer and print directly from the PowerShot A700 to a Canon or other PictBridge-enabled printer via the same USB connection.

Though it has a large 2.5 inch LCD, Canon didn't eliminate the A700's optical viewfinder, something we're seeing from other manufacturers. For saving battery life, sometimes it helps to turn off that LCD and just use the optical viewfinder. Despite its numerical position in the line, the A700 is lighter than the A620, partly owing to its use of only two AA batteries instead of the latter's four. In this sense, the A700 is quite the light, stealthy camera; more akin to the A500 series with its slimmer profile and lighter weight.

Any of the millions of A-series owners, going back to owners of the runaway bestseller A70, will find the A700 quite attractive. It's a smart, practical camera with a reasonable resolution, a big LCD, and a pretty long zoom, pressed into a small, light package that uses only two AA batteries. The A700 is another well-placed step in Canon's ongoing effort to make the PowerShot A-series the most complete line of family cameras on the market.

Canon A700 User's Report

The A700 Fully ExtendedI slipped the midsized Canon PowerShot A700 in my fanny pack, jacket pocket and shirt pocket for a couple weeks, shooting everything from macro to 16:9 cityscapes. It isn't compact but it is small enough to tag along no matter what else you're carrying. And you'll be glad you did bring it along because you'll come back, as I did, with some fine pictures.

Highlights. Years ago it was considered a virtue for a digicam to use AA batteries. You could find them anywhere, rechargeables lasted forever and they packed a bigger punch than the bulky and expensive proprietary batteries that had a short life. Then small lithium-ion rechargeables became more and more powerful in smaller and smaller cameras and the AA advantage seemed quaint.
Not to Canon. Its A-Series digicams use AAs and the latest crop use only two. And these two require no compromise in performance. There are features galore and I never had to change batteries in the middle of a shoot

The second thing I noticed about the Canon A700 was its exposure modes. Along with Auto and the 'Image Zone' options of Scene modes, Canon offers four 'Creative Zone' exposure modes, the venerable PASM options: Programmed Auto, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Manual.
Canon doesn't always mean Manual when it says Manual (generally only offering control over a few more exposure factors, like white balance, than Auto). But in the case of the A700, they mean it. You can control the shutter from 15 to 1/2000 second (depending on aperture) and the aperture from f2.8 to f8.0 (depending on focal length).

I find that important for two reasons. The first is that Auto occasionally disappoints. And the solution to those disappointments is often taking some small aspect of control back from the camera. The Canon A700 is happy to oblige. Secondly, though, having PASM on your camera means you can grow with it. You can read about some technique and actually try it out with this camera. You can't say that about every $350 digital camera out there.
The Canon A700 is just one of the A-Series cameras, however. It distinguishes it from its siblings with its 6.0 megapixel sensor, generous enough for very nice-looking 11x14 prints, and even more so by its 6x optical zoom lens. The A540, a near clone to the A700, has instead a 4x optical zoom -- both more generous than the common 3x zoom lenses found on many consumer digital cameras. At 6x, you don't need optical stabilization or an electronic viewfinder either.

In fact, that reminds us of another A-Series feature I really like: the optical viewfinder. It's something you have to give up on many credit-card-size digicams with large LCDs. But the A700's 2.5-inch LCD leaves room for an optical viewfinder that's very handy in bright sunlight, if a bit skewed.
There are some other interesting features to explore, like the two Auto ISO settings and the unusually intimate macro mode. But to do that, we've got to go shoot!

Design. An AA-based design can't be super-compact, and the A-Series isn't. But it is small enough not to require any special consideration or luggage.
In the hand, it's quite comfortable. Your right hand wraps around the battery compartment, easily nesting the heaviest part of the camera. It isn't heavy but it isn't as light as a feather either. When you press the shutter, the camera doesn't yield. And that large shutter button can't be missed, either. When your thumb effortlessly finds the empty space on the back panel, you're ready to shoot.
You can get at most controls with your thumb, although it would be wise to stabilize the camera with your right hand while you do. You mainly work the Function/Set button, the four-way navigator, the Exposure Compensation/Delete button and the Menu button, all within reach of your thumb.

Display. The LCD is your primary display, even moreso than usual. That's because the Canon A700 features a Wide format that the optical viewfinder knows nothing about. (Wide format actually just crops the sensor image top and bottom a little. You could get the same effect by cropping the images on your computer after they were shot, the A700's Wide format just does it for you, right in the camera.) The optical viewfinder is handy for brightly lit conditions, but it isn't terribly accurate. Its lens seems pushed over by the flash so the back end, centered over the LCD, actually has to take an odd angle on the scene.
The LCD is bright and has sufficient resolution that you can actually admire your shots after you take them. There's no live histogram, however, something I miss. But Canon does provide an optional grid overlay that makes it easy to line up horizons and vertical elements. (There is a histogram display available in playback mode, so you can check your exposure after the fact, but I personally really like having a live histogram available in record mode.)

Performance. From Power On to Zoom to the delay between shots, the Canon A700 was perfectly well behaved. I never seemed to have to wait for it, which is all you really ask. That virtue is surprisingly rare in $350 digital cameras.
With all the controls within thumb's reach, I couldn't complain about making changes to the exposure options either. The EV setting was blissfully simple. Press the button, use the navigator, take a shot, use the navigator, take another.
I really liked having the 6x zoom. I'm used to the range a 3x zoom offers, but wary of long zooms because I just can't hold them still even to see what I'm shooting. But 6x is a nice boost from 3x and safe from the impracticality of a non-stabilized 10x.

Shooting. With the A700 strapped to my wrist, I only had to swing it up, dial in a shooting mode, press the power button and compose to get my shot. It couldn't have been simpler.
Faced with a more complex situation, say some bright flower in my yard, I'd add a little exposure compensation, half-pressing the shutter button to get a preview of the adjustment. That was even more fun that just taking the shot with Auto.

And speaking of more fun, the Canon A700 promises plenty with a lot of features to explore.
Why two Auto ISO settings? The point of an Auto ISO setting is to automatically increase sensitivity to use a faster shutter speed so you won't capture blurred images. Normal ISO, available in Auto, Program, Shutter Priority and Aperture Priority modes, won't set sensitivity so high that noise is introduced. But High ISO Auto isn't afraid of a little noise. It's only available in Auto and Program mode, but that's enough to let you decide whether you'd rather err on the side of blur or noise.

Tapping into ISO 800 is a mixed bag. On the one hand, you'll get a noisy image. On the other, it will be sharp. Next to image stabilization, high ISO sensitivity is a real blessing for natural light shooting, something I'm particularly fond of. So, I'm glad to see ISO 800 available on the A700. I can think of half a dozen ways to deal with the noise in my image editing software later. But there's nothing you can do about a blurred image.

A Little Loopy.

Tapping into ISO 800 is a mixed bag. On the one hand, you'll get a noisy image. On the other, it will be sharp. Next to image stabilization, high ISO sensitivity is a real blessing for natural light shooting, something I'm particularly fond of. So, I'm glad to see ISO 800 available on the A700. I can think of half a dozen ways to deal with the noise in my image editing software later. But there's nothing you can do about a blurred image.

Canon PowerShot A710 IS

Canon PowerShot A710 IS Overview

The Canon PowerShot A710 IS couples a 7 megapixel CCD imager sensor with an image stabilized 6x optical zoom lens that offers a 35mm-equivalent focal range of 35 to 210mm -- a moderate wide angle to a useful telephoto. With a total range of 6x optical zoom, this is quite a bit more than most compact cameras offer, and the inclusion of a stabilizer should help ensure photos aren't blurred from camera shake at the telephoto end of the zoom. Maximum apertures vary from f/2.8 to f/4.8 across the zoom range. The A710's sensor yields an ISO range equivalent to 80 to 800, while shutter speeds from 1/2000 to 15 seconds are possible.

Designed with ease of use in mind, the Canon A710 IS offers a range of features that make it approachable to beginners, plus the ability to exert more control over the photographic process. For the former category of users, there's a fully automatic mode, and a generous selection of thirteen scene modes. For the latter, you'll find manual and aperture/shutter priority exposures possible, plus preset or manual white balance, and three metering modes. A VGA-or-below movie mode captures videos at a maximum of 30 frames per second, for up to one hour (or one gigabyte) per clip.

A USB connection allows easy offload of images from the SD or MMC card to a Mac or PC. And unlike some manufacturers who are still clinging to the older USB 1.1/2.0 Full Speed standard, Canon has adopted a much swifter USB 2.0 High Speed interface in the Canon A710. For users without a computer (or those who like to make quick prints without the hassle of touching their PC), you can bypass the extra step completely and print directly from the PowerShot A710 IS to a Canon or other PictBridge-enabled printer via the same USB connection.

Though it has a relatively large 2.5 inch LCD, Canon retained a real image optical viewfinder in the A710's design. Not only can optical viewfinders help to save battery life by turning off the LCD display, but they're also useful when ambient light makes it tough to see many LCDs properly. Power comes from two AA batteries, and Canon includes single-use alkaline disposables in the product bundle. Also included with the Canon A710 is a not-so-generous 16MB Secure Digital card. If you don't already have some, you'll want to purchase some rechargeable batteries and a larger flash card along with the camera.

Canon A710 IS User Report

The Canon A710 arrived just in time to take the trip with us to Cologne for photokina 2006. It seemed that just as we bemoaned the A700's lack of image stabilization, Canon put the A710 together with just that additional feature. How could we complain?

It's remarkable how quickly image stabilization has, as a feature, propagated. You see it on digicams with even modest zoom ranges because it permits two to three stops more natural light shooting. Its popularity is the direct inverse, I think, of the aggravation everyone has expressed about red-eye. It is, in fact, the perfect antidote to red-eye. Turn off the flash and use image stabilization with the Canon A710.

Canon has implemented it on the A710 as a lens-shift design, moving lens components rather than the image sensor. It can be operating continuously or only when the image is captured. It can also be restricted to correct up/down blurring during horizontal panning.

Design. Somehow, the Canon A710 seemed a bit sleeker to us, more like the S3 than the A700. The only unsleek thing about it was something we really liked. Like all other A-Series Canons, it's an AA battery camera and that means it has a nice bulging hand grip. Not a very obtrusive one, but more than the little ridges, bumps and fins compact digicams offer. So you can actually operate the Canon A710 safely with just one hand, your thumb dancing around the four buttons and one navigator on the back panel.

The A700 requires only two AA cells, rather than the usual four. The difference, according to Canon, is 360 shots instead of 500, but my heaviest day at photokina required about 130 shots per camera. Much as I like the grip and much as I like AA cells, two is better than four.

Otherwise, I'd rave about what a great travel companion the Canon A710 turned out to be. In fact, as I flew over half the world, it was easy to slip out of our camera bag and shoot a few dozen pictures of the planet, a diversion I enjoy more and more. And it was also easy to pack along as I wandered the streets of Cologne.

Oddly enough, I wasn't as fond of the Canon A710 for shooting photokina itself. There's a lot to be said for what Canon calls a "variable" LCD, permitting you to see what you're doing when you hold the camera above your head or below your belt -- or just angling the LCD to avoid glare while you focus on your subject

Fortunately, Canon makes a few A-Series digicams with variable LCDs. In fact, the one Canon bash I attended sent us home with a municipal road crew orange bag packed with their catalogs and press releases. Look carefully and you're bound to find the model with all the features you want. If not, just wait a few months for the next model. Somehow I think I'll see an A7xx with a variable screen before long.

For a body that's partly metal, it's odd to discover that the tripod mount is plastic. There are no plastic tripod screws, so guess what gets stripped if you overtighten?
Display/Viewfinder. The one drawback of an articulated LCD is that it requires a sturdy frame so the LCD itself can't be very large. No three-inch LCDs. But at 2.5 inches, the Canon A710's LCD is the same size as the variable LCDs on the A640 and A630. Unfortunately, it only displays 115,000 pixels.

The interesting thing about the Canon A710 is that it also includes, like its predecessor, an optical viewfinder. This matters a great deal to a large number of people. In bright conditions, most LCDs are unusable. And bright conditions are photogenic conditions. So being able to resort to an optical viewfinder is a welcome relief.
On the other hand, Luke (who shot all the test shots for this model) had a different appreciation of the optical viewfinder. "Horrible, sloppy, blurry, distorted, misframed, nearly useless (and unfortunately, typical) optical viewfinder," he wrote in his shooters notes. Typical is the revealing word, I think. These things tend to be tiny and the Canon A710's is very small, like looking through the eye of a needle. It's only an approximation of what the lens is looking at, but sometimes that's all you need.

Performance. The Canon A710 wouldn't have made much of a travel companion if it took forever to get ready and forever to get settled. A good travel companion has to be ready before the bus and unpacked as soon as the door to the room swings open. The Canon PowerShot A710 approximated that behavior very well.
This was no more true than in the plane. It may not feel like it, but the landscape changes every few seconds. And no digicam battery can last as long as an international flight. So when you see something to shoot, you turn the camera on, take a few shots, and turn it off. The Canon A710 was responsive enough to do that without aggravation.

At 6x optical zoom, the Canon A710's lens is the longest (250mm) in the A-Series, all of which get as wide as 35mm (not terribly wide). It's a fairly fast lens at f2.8-f4.8 and image stabilization makes it even faster in practical use.
The 7.1 megapixel sensor offers more resolution than the A700's 6.0 megapixels, but less than the 10 megapixel A640 or the 8.0 megapixel A630. If that's a concern for you, study the ISO noise images to see how these models compare. The more megapixels at this sensor size, the more noise.

Shooting. I made much of the A700's PASM options -- particularly its real Manual mode -- and the Canon A710 inherits that versatility (and praise). There is, typically, no one correct exposure. There are several, ranging from a wide open lens to a stopped down lens at various shutter speeds to complement the aperture (and vice versa).
When you limit yourself to green Auto mode, you're telling the camera to pick something in the middle. On the Canon A710, you can't adjust Auto mode.
But what's a "correct" exposure? Often what the light meter is rendering in middle gray isn't representative of the subject. Neither black cat or a white rabbit, for example, should be gray. Program mode lets you adjust exposure by setting EV compensation. It isn't quite a full Program mode (letting you adjust either the shutter speed or aperture and compensating with the other variable), but more like Auto on most digicams.

The Canon A710's versatility is really in the other three standard modes. You can select a different correct exposure (adjusted with EV compensation, if you like) with a more open or closed aperture in Aperture Priority mode, or a slower or faster shutter speed using Shutter Priority mode.
If you only want to limit the shutter speed to handheld speeds, Shutter Priority is the ticket. Set it at 1/60 second or 1/30 (if you can handle it) and you don't have to worry about camera shake. Ranging from 15 seconds to 1/2000 second, you have quite a few choices.
Aperture Priority does the same for your lens stop if your concern is depth of field. Like most digicams, the aperture options on the Canon A710 are fairly restricted, ranging from f/2.8 to f/8.0 at wide angle and f/4.8 to f/8.0 at telephoto. Still, that's a few stops to work with.
And then there's Manual mode for complete control.
These four modes -- Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, and Manual -- are surprisingly absent on many digicams. I was very happy to see them on the Canon A710.
I used to have a good deal of trouble navigating Canon's menu system, but I find it a lot simpler these days. In Auto, you don't worry about the buttons at all. In Program, just hit the EV button and change the exposure with the Left or Right arrow keys. Shutter and Aperture Priority modes use those arrow keys to adjust their values, too. Manual uses the EV button to toggle between aperture and shutter speed, both adjusted with those same arrow keys.
There are Scene modes, yes, but I never resorted to them, frankly. Some manufacturers offer dozens of them, but Canon puts a few (like Portrait, Landscape, Night Scene, Panorama and Movie) on the A710's Mode dial and others (like Night Snapshot, Kids & Pets, Indoor, Foliage, Snow, Beach, Fireworks, Underwater, Color Accent and Color Swap) under the Scene option of the Mode dial. I prefer Canon's focus on PASM over Scene modes, but there are some cute tricks (like keystoning business cards) I wish were included in the Scene modes. Not, that is, just some convenient configurations but some advanced processing.
I did miss a live histogram, but the Canon A710 shows a histogram in Playback mode. But I found I could trust the Canon A710 enough that I didn't flip back and forth between Record and Playback mode.
In-camera photostitching hasn't come to the Canon line yet (although HP and Kodak both offer it), but you can take panoramas to be merged into one shot later on a computer using the included PhotoStitch application.
One large aggravation with Canon in general and the A710 especially is the difficulty I had rotating Canon images into the proper orientation. I found that if you turn off the Auto Rotation feature, the images were fine, but once the Canon A710 was allowed to intervene in the rotation process, we lost control depending on which program I decided to use. It's one very rough spot in a relatively smooth ride.

Canon PowerShot SD100 Digital ELPH Camera

Introduction

Ask a photographer, either professional or amateur, to name the first couple of camera manufacturers they can think of, and chances are one would be Canon. Canon digital cameras carry on the history of innovation, with a broad line of products ranging from entry-level models all the way to no-holds-barred digital SLRs for professional photographers. In the consumer arena, their products are distinguished by superb design, sharp lenses, and excellent color.

In both the film and digital worlds, the high-style, diminutive Canon ELPH models have been wildly popular. Long a popular brand for APS film cameras, the Canon Digital ELPHs brought the compact size and styling to the digital world with the original S100. The Canon Powershot SD100 Digital ELPH updates the line by adopting the SD memory card format, while offering the same great features and point-and-shoot simplicity that have made the ELPH series so popular with a wide range of consumers.

Camera OverviewSlightly smaller than many preceding Canon Digital ELPH models, the Powershot SD100 features the same great looks and sharp design are the ELPH signature. Very compact and quick on the draw (thanks to a smooth retractable lens design), the Powershot SD100 is a convenient point-and-shoot digital camera with a handful of extra exposure features for a little added flexibility. With the lens retracted, the Canon SD100's front panel is flat and pocket friendly, and its all-metal body rugged and durable. Equipped with a 3.2-megapixel CCD, the SD100 captures high quality images, suitable for printing snapshots as large as 8x10 inches. Smaller image sizes are also available for email transmission or Web applications, and a movie mode captures short video clips with sound.

The Canon SD100 features a 2x, 5.4-10.8mm zoom lens, equivalent to a 35-70mm zoom on a 35mm camera (a fairly common 2x zoom range). Aperture is automatically controlled, but the maximum setting ranges from f/2.8 at full wide angle to f/3.9 at full telephoto. A maximum 3.2x digital zoom option increases the SD100's zoom capability to 6.4x, but keep in mind that digital zoom decreases the overall image quality, as it simply crops out and enlarges the center pixels of the CCD image. Image details are thus likely to be softer with digital zoom. Focus ranges from 1.5 feet (47 centimeters) to infinity in normal AF mode, and from 3.9 inches to 1.5 feet (10 to 47 centimeters) in Macro mode. An Infinity fixed-focus mode is also available. The SD100 employs a sophisticated, nine-point AiAF (Artificial Intelligence Autofocus) system to determine focus, which uses a broad active area in the center of the image to calculate the focal distance (a feature I've been impressed with on many ELPH models and hope to see continued). Through the Record menu, you can turn AiAF off, which defaults the autofocus to the center of the frame. Also built-in to the SD100 is an AF assist light, which aids the focus mechanism in low light. For composing images, the SD100 offers a real-image optical viewfinder, as well as a 1.5-inch color LCD monitor. The LCD reports a fair amount of camera information, but excludes exposure information such as aperture and shutter speed. In Playback mode, a histogram display reports the tonal distribution of a captured image, useful in determining any over- or under-exposure.

Because the ELPH line capitalizes on ease of use, exposure control is typically automatic to increase the line's appeal to point-and-shoot users. The SD100 doesn't waver from this trend, but does provide a handful of manual adjustments. The Mode dial on the rear panel controls the main operating mode, offering Playback, Auto, Manual, and Movie modes. Shutter speeds range from 1/1,500 to 15 seconds, with the one- to 15-second end of the range only available in Long Shutter mode (which also automatically invokes a Noise Reduction system to eliminate excess image noise in longer exposures). In straight Auto mode, the camera controls everything about the exposure except for file size, flash, etc. Manual mode provides more hands-on control, with White Balance, Exposure Compensation, ISO, and some creative effects. Camera operation is straightforward, as you typically just point and shoot most of the time. Pressing the Shutter button halfway sets focus and exposure, and the small LEDs next to the optical viewfinder let you know when the camera is ready to take the picture.

The SD100 uses an Evaluative metering system by default, which means that the camera divides the image area into zones and evaluates each zone to determine the best overall exposure. A Spot metering option ties the exposure to the very center of the frame, and is useful for off-center or high contrast subjects, letting you pinpoint the exact area of the frame to base the exposure on. There's also a Center-Weighted metering option, which bases the exposure on a large area in the center of the frame. Exposure Compensation increases or decreases the overall exposure from -2 to +2 exposure equivalents (EV) in one-third step increments. A White Balance option offers Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H, and Custom (manual) settings. The SD100 also offers a creative Photo Effects menu, which adjusts sharpening, color, and saturation. Sensitivity equivalents include 50, 100, 200, and 400 ISO settings, as well as an Auto adjustment. The SD100's built-in flash operates in Auto, Forced On, Suppressed, Red-Eye Reduction, and Slow-Synchro modes. You can also lock the flash exposure in the same way you can lock normal exposure. Pressing the Shutter button halfway and keeping it pressed initiates the exposure lock, signaled by two beeps and activating an "FEL" icon in the LCD monitor until the Shutter button is released or fully pressed.

A two- or 10-second self-timer option counts down by flashing a small LED on the front of the camera before firing the shutter, giving you time to duck around the camera and get into your own shots. Stitch-Assist mode is the SD100's panoramic shooting mode, which lets you shoot as many as 26 consecutive images. The series of images can then be "stitched" together into a single panoramic frame with the accompanying software. The SD100 also has a Movie Record mode, which records moving images with sound for as long as three minutes per clip, depending on the resolution setting and amount of memory card space. (Movies are recorded at either 640 x 480, 320 x 240, or 160 x 120 pixels.) Finally, a Continuous Shooting mode captures a series of consecutive images (much like a motor drive on a traditional camera), at approximately 2.2 frames per second, for as long as the Shutter button is held down. The actual frame rate varies with the resolution setting, with the total number of images also depending on the amount of memory card space and file size.

The My Camera settings menu lets you customize camera settings to a specific theme. Everything from the startup image to operating sounds can be assigned to a theme, either one of the pre-programmed themes or one downloaded from the camera software or stored on the memory card. The SD100 also lets you record short sound clips to accompany captured images, via the Sound Memo option, great for lively captions to vacation photos or party shots.

The SD100 stores images on SD memory cards (hence, the "SD" in its name). A 16MB card accompanies the camera, but I recommend picking up a larger capacity card, at least 64 megabytes, so you don't miss any shots. The camera utilizes a rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack for power, which accompanies the camera, along with the necessary battery charger. Because the SD100 does not accommodate AA-type batteries in any form, I strongly advise picking up an additional battery pack and keeping it freshly charged. The optional AC adapter is useful for preserving battery power when reviewing and downloading images, and actually uses a "dummy" battery that inserts into the camera's battery compartment. A USB cable and interface software are also packaged with the camera, for downloading images to a computer and performing minor organization and corrections. Two software CDs provide the necessary drivers and editing software, both compatible with Windows and Macintosh platforms. One CD holds Canon's Digital Camera Solution Disk version 12.0 and the other features ArcSoft's Camera Suite version 1.2. Finally, an A/V cable connects the SD100 to a television set, for reviewing and composing images. The SD100 is Digital Print Order Format (DPOF) compatible, with detailed print settings in the Playback menu. Canon offers a selection of direct-connect printers as well, which simplifies printing even more.