The Canon PowerShot A590 IS
Posted by bensto in Canon on 04 15th, 2008
Canon put essence over style when it designed the PowerShot A590 IS, and in doing so it made a awesome camera. Whereas the clunky-looking 8-megapixel shooter looks bland when compared with colorful, ultraslim, style-minded cameras, its remarkable insides help produce some of the nicest photos you’ll shoot for less than $200.
The chunky, practical design gives the A590 IS a functional and easy-to-handle feel at the expense of aesthetics. A large protrusion houses the camera’s two AA batteries on the right side of the body and also provides a steady grip. The 2.5-inch LCD screen leaves enough room for an optical viewfinder, a convenient sliding mode switch, and several large, responsive buttons. While it won’t slip as easily into a pocket as an ultracompact camera, and won’t elicit any impressed gasps from your friends, the A590 IS simply feels comfortable to use.
read comments (0)Canon PowerShot A470 (red)
Posted by bensto in Canon on 03 29th, 2008
Do you need to get a pretty good digital camera but unexpensive price ? The Canon PowerShot A470 is one of the best examples. With a price tag less than $150, it produces surprisingly good pictures. It isn’t the prettiest camera available and it doesn’t have any flashy features, but for the price, it’s hard to beat.
Canon tries to serve the A470 a much-needed injection of style by offering four color choices: gray, blue, red, and orange. Sadly, colorful accents can’t hide the camera’s chunky, unattractive design. It feels like a king-size candy bar, measuring almost 4 inches long, 2 inches thick, and more than an inch and a half wide. At 7.6 ounces with an SD card and two AA batteries, it also weighs in as one of the heftiest budget cameras available. The lens and LCD screen both jut out uselessly from the body, giving it a bumpy, uneven feel. Compared with the huge selection of budget point-and-shoots on the market measuring just an inch thick or less, the A470 is downright huge. On the bright side, the camera’s large body makes it easy to grip and hold, and its wide design leaves room for large, simple controls that even bigger thumbs can comfortably manipulate.
Noise mars the A470’s otherwise very nice pictures. Grain starts to appear at ISO 200, and becomes quite noticeable at ISO 400. From ISO 800 to the camera’s maximum sensitivity of ISO 1,600, fuzz saturates the picture, giving everything a felt-like texture. Besides the noise, however, the camera’s pictures look good. Fine details appear crisp and clear, especially for a sub-$150 camera. Minor barrel distortion appears on the edges of pictures at the widest lens position, but it doesn’t seriously hurt picture quality. Colors look generally neutral, though they sometimes appear slightly cooler than usual. If you keep sensitivity low, the A470 will produce good-looking prints. Even at higher ISO settings, pictures look clear enough to e-mail or post to the Web.
The Canon PowerShot A470 is a great digital camera. The chunky, sub-$150 shooter doesn’t have many bells or whistles, but it shoots quickly in brighter light and produces very nice-looking pictures. It doesn’t work very well in low light, but that’s a flaw shared by most snapshot cameras in general. If you want to spend as little cash as possible for a decent camera, the PowerShot A470 is one of the best choices currently available.
Touchy Camera by Panasonic
Posted by bensto in Panasonic on 03 21st, 2008
Many people don’t know about Panasonic’s Lumix DMC-FX500. Panasonic made this model very instinctive with features novices and experts can appreciate. Many beginners are not familiar with their camera’s settings, because let’s face it, not everyone reads the manual or takes special photography classes.
Panasonic LUMIX DMC-FX500 has 3-inch touch screen on the back that permit users to speedily change the settings depending on the condition. For example, by selecting a person on the touchscreen, you activate the auto focus lock feature on the camera that keeps the subject in focus no matter what they do, so you don’t have to worry about readjusting the camera every time. This is great for people who often take photos of moving subjects that won’t keep still, like fidgety children or pets.
You can also tap on a subject and let the camera choose the right mode depending on the subject’s position with using the touch panel. By touching a person’s face, the camera switches to portrait mode or to macro if you want a close-up of a flower instead. Zooming in or out of a photo in playback mode is also possibly by moving sliders left or right on the touch screen.
The additional nice about the 10-megapixel LUMIX DMC-FX500 is it can record video in high-definition at 720p, and take still images in a 16:9 aspect ratio that can be viewed in a widescreen television. Other features include image-stabilization, face detection, automated scene-detection, a 25mm wide-angle lens, and 5X optical zoom.
Nikon Coolpix S51 8.1MP DC
Posted by bensto in Nikon on 02 28th, 2008The Nikon Coolpix S51 is an excellent new compact digital camera.It’s combining between Nikon’s distinctive wave-surface design with advanced features that make it easier to take beautiful photos and to share them with friends and family.
Nikon Coolpix S51 is an effective megapixels of sharp resolution with a new high-performance digital image processing engine and the accuracy optics of the built-in “right-angle” optical lens shift VR (Vibration Reduction) 3x Zoom-Nikkor lens to produce photos with clearness and true-to-life color. Extended light sensitivity as high as ISO 1600 avoids blurred shots when shooting in lower light or when capturing fast-moving subjects.
This DC also includes Pictmotion, which permits users to create audiovisual shows anywhere by simply selecting favorite images and movies and adding music and visual styles.
Offers a bright and large image that eases composition and viewing, even out in the sun with 3.0-inch LCD monitor. Control buttons and the user-friendly rotary multi selector are carefully positioned to provide intuitive operation. The smooth contours and refined finish of the aluminum face panel fit comfortably in the hand–both models feature a metallic finish with ultra-violet coating providing a brilliant outer sheen.
Canon PowerShot SD1000 Digital ELPH
Posted by bensto in Nikon on 02 22nd, 2008
The Canon PowerShot SD1000’s new cosmetic look harkens back to the original Elph with the big black circle around its lens, but drew mixed reactions from the people to whom we showed our sample. Some were turned off by the overall boxy shape, though just as many admired the tiny, simple shape. Likewise, about half felt the look was too retro, while the other half admired the throwback design. If you don’t like the black-on-silver design, Canon also offers a silver-on-silver version.
To date, Canon hasn’t seen fit to include manual exposure controls in any of the cameras in the Digital Elph line, and the SD1000 continues this trend. On one level, it makes sense, since the target audience for these compacts is snapshooters who often don’t know an f-stop from a shutter speed. While we can’t hold this against Canon (its competitors do the same thing), with more and more pros and advanced shooters looking for pocketable back-up cameras, it might be time to broaden the scope of these models. Fourteen scene modes help you tackle specific situations, such as portraits, fireworks, and snowy scenes. Some of these appear in the main function menu, but Canon makes you press the menu button again to see them all. In addition to scene modes, there’s also a full auto mode, as well as a mode marked manual, which lets you choose certain options, such as exposure compensation, white balance, and metering mode (evaluative, center weighted, or spot).
