Imaging on a budget (Canon Powershot A300)

Member Name: Plymyphil

Product:	Canon Powershot A300
Date:	07/11/03 (142 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Price, Features, Software

Disadvantages: Complexity, Battery life

The Canon A300 was my first venture away from Olympus digital cameras. I was attracted by the feature rich camera that seemed to offer quality for a mid-range price. I paid 169ukp but they are now available for less.

Initially I found the Canon hard to get to grips with and I think this is true for people migrating away from Olympus. There is a whole host of menus and at times the icons for particular selections did not seem immediately intuitive. Thirty minutes with the instruction book soon put paid to this problem however and I now find the camera as easy as any previous products to use.

Once you get used to using the camera the number of features is amazing. The camera can adjust image resolution and also has settings for quality on top of this which help get even more images onto the comapct flash card. The 16Mb card included is probably not going to be enough so do budget for a larger card, especially if you intend to use the camera's movie mode.

So, what of the image quality? Still images are good quality unless the flash fires within 4 feet of the subject in which case the subject can appear slightly washed out and over exposed. The movie mode again needs help with the lighting as without natural light the movie's can appear slightly grainy and dark.

The image handling software that comes with the camera is as good as any I've seen. Printing to specific size of papers is as simple as selecting the size and orientation and then the software deals with the rest. Browsing the images is also made easy as the software thimbnails every image in a folder. (This does need managing as over fifty images and they are too small to see.)

Overall, for a mid priced camera, the feature list, the ability to record digital movies and the included software represent very good value for money. Watch out fo the battery life though. LCD screens always march through batteries but this is one of the biggest battery minchers I
have seen.

Summary: