I’m approaching the point where I’m going to buy a digital camera and finally shut up about it. Optical zooms have broken the $300 barrier. Scanning the Circuit City ads I’m leaning toward the Canon Powershot A10. Cnet doesn’t have a full review of this model so does anyone have any comments? Any other suggestions?
Well, I happen to have the camera in question (A10), so here goes…
Things I like:
-small size
-picture quality
-it has a type 2 compact flash memory slot (meaning an ibm microdrive works on it).
Things I don’t like:
-unresponsive shutter (there’s a noticeable delay from when I press the shutter to when it takes the picture)
-short battery life (which leads to…)
-having to purchase the rechargable battery separately… and the fact it’s proprietary
Overall, I’ve been happy with the A10, but if you’re going to get this one, be prepared to spend extra on the rechargable battery kit. Otherwise you’ll be dropping too much money on those expensive photo batteries.
If you have any specific questions about it, feel free to ask.
I’ll drop you a note offline, thanks.
Oh man. I goofed… bad.
I have a powershot S10, not A10.
My sincere apologies.
I think I’ll go back to lurking now…
Probably close enough some things apply. It takes AAs and NiMH AAs are fairly inexpensive and commonplace now. I think I’ll take the plunge… but save the box in case it doesn’ live up to expectations.
The folks at imaging-resource.com have extremely detailed camera reviews. See the A10 review at http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/A10/A10A.HTM
For user reviews, see http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_post.asp?cameras=canon_a10&method=sidebyside
Oh yeah, I forgot about Steve’s Digicams: http://www.steves-digicams.com/2001_reviews/a10.html
Technology changes quickly so I would just drop the exact name of the camera you want in a Net search box & youll come up with a lot of answers. I like the digital camcorders that also do photos, some of them are pretty cheap these days.
Lots of reviews on the net to be sure Handy but I would of course prefer the opinions of SDMB folks than the unwashed ingnorencia of the net at large.
I prefer to use http://www.dcresource.com for the reviews. They also link heavily to Steve’s. These folks aren’t the unwashed internet masses, these are the experts. The reviews are top notch and the message boards have people who use every model of camera that comes on the market.
I actually found the reviews to be very useful. Thanks to all those that posted the links. I found them much better than Cnet’s reviews. (actually Cnet didn’t even have a review of the A10) The sony that CC had for the same price had more features but I was put off by the proprietary memory stick and many reports of poor battery life.
I bought the Canon A10 last night and so far it looks like a winner. Image quality is far better than I expected and the controls work as I expect them too. I particulaly like that you have to intentionally invoke the digital zoom as I prefer to stick with the optical zoom range. It does suck through alkalines pretty fast when the LCD is on and using flash but I got two sets of NiMH batteries. Fortunately I have a charger that will handle them but I want to find one of the new Raovac 1 hour NiMH chargers. The extras will end up costing half again as much as the camera but when I get a 64bm flash card tomorrow I should be sitting pretty.
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Lazlo…
Are you sure it’s not a 2-step button? Our Sony has a setting where you can feel two stages of “clicks” in the shutter button… when you press it past the first “click”, it takes a few seconds to prepare, but after that, you can hold the button in the ready position before pressing it to the second “click” and then it takes the picture separately.
It’s awkward, but once you figure it out, it actually eliminates most of the problems in taking a picture.
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As I perused the manual last night I discovered the default setting for redeye reduction slows the shutter response. With the flash set to auto it’s much better.
Depending on what you want to use the camera for:
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a guy at work just bought a small (about the size of three ball point pens together) digital camera, with software and connecting cable for $60 at WallMart. The quality is surprising good! It will even allow you to shoot mini movies (60 or so frames).
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I just saw an ad at an electronics store for digital cameras for $35.00 including software.
Granted, neither has the bells and whistles and quality of the more expensive models, but if you are just using it to make snapshots of bobbing head toys for EBay, or pictures of your naughty-bits for the chat rooms, then these little cheapies are perfect!
Amazing how fast the prices are dropping…when are we going to see DVD’s for under $50?
DMark, that sounds like a webcam. Inexpensive and tiny but you sort of need a PC attached to it to make it work. Good stand alone digital cameras are still a bit more dear.
I just got a screamer deal on memory, $36 for a Lexar 80MB compact flash card. Now my only problems are finding the fast NiMH recharger and a way to download to my PC at work. It’s NT so doesn’t support USB. If I can find one of those floppy disk adapters I might go that route if it’s cheap enough.
“DMark, that sounds like a webcam. Inexpensive and tiny but you sort of need a PC attached to it to make it work. Good stand alone digital cameras are still a bit more dear.”
Nope. This was a tiny camera, ran on one AA battery…the guy in our office went from desk to desk (without being hooked up to a computer), took a snap of each of us, and in minutes, was emailing us the photos. AIPTEK was the name brand of the software.
I don’t know about that other camera advertised for $35.
Thats a webcam that is removable and has some memory… you can use it like a regular digital camera but its not near the quality of a $300 digital camera… still neat though.