My Canon Powershot A620 is a good camera, but still I have to begin with a disappointment, which I haven't been able to find discussed much anywhere else:
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| Canon PowerShot A620 digital camera |
The camera can capture video footage - and not just 30 second clips, but as much video as you have space for on your memory card. When you switch the camera to video capture mode, however, it emits a high-pitched whining noise. This whining noise is intensified in fast frame rate video capture mode; and in either the fast or normal modes the whining noise is clearly recorded by the camera's in-built microphone.
According to Canon product support, the 'camera will normally emit a whine when in the movie modes, but this sound is quite faint, and would only be heard when filming in very quiet environments'. This is hardly a valid defence though; I'd have thought that most people would have wanted to film in a quiet environment on average at least about half the time.
Then again, the camera is not predominantly a movie camera; it's quite adequate for capturing the memory of an experience in motion. If for whatever reason you did intend to use its video capture modes to produce something more refined, you'd likely be looking to dub an audio track over the top anyway.
So then, on to it's more important function: as a stills camera.
If you look at my photos, you'll see that I've managed to take some nice pictures with it. I found while I was taking pictures for three months in India that the camera gave me just about everything I needed, whilst still being a convenient size. It works well as a fun snapper, but also provides sufficient manual control, for a beginner at least. While I was away though, I usually had no qualms about going round with a sizeable camera pouch on my belt. This isn't really practical if you want to take snaps at a party.
The 4.0x zoom is big enough, again for a beginner at least; anything smaller would be a disability. Of course in many situations you'll feel that you could easily make use of a larger zoom, as would be provided by a telephoto lens; similarly, the experience of looking at a view as if through a keyhole will make you wish you had a wide-angle lens. These lenses can be purchased as optional accessories, but at £80 or £90 each they're not cheap, so if these limitations are likely to bother you, it would be worth considering a higher spec camera.
The other thing that bothers me about the PowerShot A620 is not being able easily to capture low-light scenes without using the flash. Using the flash often seems to change the colours of the scene, and disabling it causes the auto-adjust modes to attempt to capture a picture that's too dark. You can easily switch to a manual setting of course, but then even using the fastest ISO speed it's difficult to capture a clear image without a tripod. You can see what I mean with this picture I took in a dimly-lit club - and it's one of the best of a number of pictures. Another thing that the camera lacks for me then is image stabilisation. Again, this is something that would be available with a higher spec camera.
The Canon Powershot A620 captures 7.1 megapixel pictures. This would allow you to print good quality A3 size pictures, which is quite big enough for most uses. Any advantages to having a higher megapixel camera would be found probably only when you come to crop the pictures. In any case, ever-cheaper digital cameras are able to capture increasingly larger pictures.
The Canon Powershot series of cameras come with fold-out vari-angle screens. This feature at first seemed unnecessary, but I'm very positive now about the advantages that it offers: you can use it to take pictures from angles away from your body - from above your head, from an arms length down the other side of a wall, from the ground - whilst still being able to see the picture that you're about to capture, instead of having to take those pictures blind. Also, it allows you to photograph people without them realising that that's what you're doing: you can hold the camera at your waist as if looking through pictures that you've already taken. (This is a good thing so long as you have the permission of the person you're photographing!)
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| It's possible to adjust the threshold on the colour accent feature so that you don't get colour in the wrong places, unlike in this example. |
Another nice feature is being able to attach an audio memo to any of your pictures, recorded after the picture is taken using the camera's inbuilt microphone.
The fun 'My Colours' features of the camera are also enjoyable, allowing colour-swapping and accenting effects to be captured on the camera itself, rather than having to be produced later in photoshop.
The Canon Camera Window software that comes with the PowerShot A620 works well to transfer photographs onto your computer, and the ZoomBrowser software provides a pretty intuitive way of reviewing and organising your pictures. The camera also comes with PhotoStitch software, which is very good for sticking together the pictures that you take using the camera's panoramic mode.
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| Ajanta, India. Click to enlarge. |
For the limitations I mentioned above though, after being very happy with it for three months, I'm beginning to think now that two cameras would be ideal in place of my PowerShot A620: one very small compact camera for social occassions, and one larger, higher spec camera for more serious photography.
When you buy a memory card for it, make sure you get a high-speed one so that the card can keep up with the rate at which the camera captures data when filming or shooting continuously.
© 2007 Kevin Joyner. All Rights Reserved
