If anyone can..... (Canon Powershot A400)

Member Name: archiegirl

Product:	Canon Powershot A400
Date:	29/01/06 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: small, neat, good quality pics

Disadvantages: some faffy extras

I confess, I don't actually own this camera. My brother does however, and he lent it to me for the weekend and I liked it so much that I decided to review it here for your edification! It's a little belter!

I have several cameras, two digital and two SLRs. Both SLRs are made by Canon and I have been nothing but delighted with them. They are excellent middle range cameras, suitable for the semi-pro. I bought a Kodak for my first digital simply because it was cheap and cheerful, and an Olympus for my second. After my experiences with this camera, I will be buying a Canon next.

I borrowed my brother's camera to download his pictures of my new nephew and to see how well the Canon compared with the cameras I own. I found that it was vastly superior to the Kodak on all levels and is comparable to the Olympus except for screen size. The body of the camera is more solid and it looks more attractive. I know this isn't vital, but it helps! There are four colourways available, blue, gold, silver and green. The front panel is the coloured bit, the body of the camera is silver.

So, features. The camera is 3.2 mega pixels, which for the uninitiated means that the photos will be of high quality but not the highest quality available. Usually the more pixels the higher the price of the camera. I have found that anything over 4 Mega pixels is redundant for my picture taking needs. I'm only taking pics of family and holidays, I haven't got the quality printer and don't need that kind of resolution. The viewing screen is a good size but smaller than on my Olympus. The camera runs on 2 AA batteries and I am reliably told that the batteries last quite well in energy saving mode.

It has a 2 times optical zoom. Useful for closing in on landscape features without losing definition. It has a 7 times digital zoom. This means that you can zoom in on parts of your picture after you have taken it but you will lose definition the more you zoom in.

The start up modes can be themed. I found this the gimmicky bit to be honest. You can fanny about setting it to an ornithological theme where you get bird pictures on start up and wildlife noises
with different functions. There is also the standard Canon theme and another more fancy Canon theme. Silly. A waste of space. Otherwise the menus are simple to figure out and you can get up and running straight away.

There are the standard functions you might expect from a digi camera: different auto focus modes for portrait, landscape, night photos, red eye reduction, auto orientation of the pictures, self-timer. There is a movie mode with sound and you get about 40 seconds of movie. There is a "quick shoot function" enabling very fast shutter speed for action shots. The camera is pict bridge supported, which basically means that you don't need a PC to print off pictures, you can use a dedicated photo printer. You also get a share button, useful for e-mailing pictures etc.

What did I think of the pictures? The quality is superb. the colours are true and there are no problems with delayed shutter speed. You get the picture you think you are getting! The photos are equally as good as my Olympus produces, despite the pixel difference. I took the camera withme on my daily dog walk and snapped pictures in low light with no flash and also with flash, both were excellent. The camera is robust enough to be casually plonked in your pocket or bag and not suffer.

I didn't upload the software that comes with the camera, Windows XP recognised the hardware and let me get the pictures without it.

In all, I would recommend this camera to those who are looking for a reasonably priced, simple to use first or second digital camera. I think it would make a superb gift for a teenager, it is cute enough to be envied yet robust enough for the treatment that a clubbing, party animal or snowboarder might give it! At 94 pounds from Amazon.co.uk it won't break the bank either, which is no bad thing!


Cheers!

Summary: decent starter camera, nice price, excellent pictures.

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