Chunkyshot (Canon Powershot A590 IS)

Member Name: geek_squad

Product:	Canon Powershot A590 IS
Date:	27/07/09 (21 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Compact, practical, manual settings

Disadvantages: Viewfinder is not accurate

When looking at the Canon Powershot A590 IS, it immediate gives a feeling that it is something of substance. Its aesthetic features consist of a rather solid look which is indeed backed up by the fact that the camera is well build and sturdy, meaning it is capable of withstanding the occasional knock or drop. The styling of the camera is indeed designed around the ergonomics of the camera, meaning that it has been made to be comfortable and easy to grip and hold, however the styling has suffered as a result to a certain degree, since some people might find this camera too unfashionable.

There are a total of twelve present features that change the exposure settings to fit most shooting conditions, this feature is particularly useful for a beginner in photography or for those that do not enjoy spending too much time changing the settings of the camera before each shot.

There camera 's ISO ranges from 80 to 1600, with 6 different settings which is sufficient for a wide range of lighting conditions. This provide the user a chance to make some fine adjustments before taking the photo.

There is also 5 white balance settings that can also be used in conjunction with the other settings to try to achieve the best setting possible to math the shooting conditions.

It is no necessary to use these settings, however they are useful especially if you are not willing to spend too much time editing the photographs afterwards on a computer.

When taking photos with the flash, it would be best to try to use the manual settings to compensate for the use of artificial lights, because it does affect the camera's colour accuracy when doing so.

When display screen is quite good and fit for purpose, it is fine to use in low light conditions, however it does become hard to view when using the camera in intense sunlight. In the event that this happens, it is always possible to use the camera's viewfinder instead which is a bit inaccurate and has a lower quality, however it is proven to be suited for a crisis like this.

The camera does not have any build in memory capacity, however a 32 megabyte memory card is supplied instead. As a whole this camera is quite fast at processing images, only taking a fast 0.6 second shutter delay and start up time of 2.3 seconds. When shooting in auto mode, it takes 2.3 to process between each single shot. When using the camera in burst mode it takes about 1.7 seconds to process between shots.

Having a 8 megapixel resolution is quite good if you want to print the images in a reasonably large format. The camera's image stabilisation feature helps to keep the images sharp especially when you are using the zoom. The battery stamina is quite good, providing a long running time before needing to be replaced.

Summary: Overall, a good practical camera for those that do not care too much about its aesthetic appearances

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