Rating

I bought this camera recently from Amazon. When I bought it I paid roughly U$ 270, which was a very excellent price when the same camera was advertised by other vendors at over U$ 300. For the money I paid, this camera is awsome. I am personally not too fond of touchscreens (I am more into the “analog” and “buttons” designs.. call me ancient fashioned), but this camera blew my mind. The touch screen is so intuitive you can get to every corner of the menu in seconds. It has nice futures as touching an area of the picture to select where to focus. Other things it has are creative effects, like selecting one particular color and leaving the rest of the image in black and white: this makes very nice artistic images whan you want a particular item to stand out in the picture. You can even select any color in the image and swap (in real time) for another… I tried taking a shot at the swimming pool, which locked pale and white, and swapped for an aquamarine turquoise which really enhanced the picture without making it cheesy or fake-looking… It’s like working with Photoshop in real time.. The camera is really small and practical. As I had read in other reviews, the batery/SD lid is quite flimsy, built of a thin plastic which doesen’t look very promising. The lids on the HDMI and USB connections also look like they’ll break before the camera’s first birthday. But, this is not a tough-built, rugged camera to take under the rain or on the trail, so provided you serve its intended use (parties, home, theatre, and anywhere where you’d take reasonable excellent care of a high quality optic instrument!), you should be fine. It doesen’t require silk gloves… just don’t fumble with the lids too often. The quality of the pictures is excellent but not outstanding, at least in auto modes indoors (I have an Olympus 570UZ which I reckon handles white balance more nicely). The HDMI is superb, and the real plus is the 24mm equivalent widescreen, which is fantastic for indoor group pictures where small space would usually require everyone to huddle up so as to fit in the picture.. I would buy this again.

Rating

I am very pleased with this buy – It is exactly what the desciption says – I bought this camera becaus the one I had did not perform well in low light – this camera takes fantastic pictures in low light – outside or in – would recommend this anyone looking for a small, powerful camera – Canon got it right with this one!

Rating

This camera surprised me. First of all, my personal cameras are huge Nikons, so my ego tells me that this small camera is a toy and isn’t going to come close. I do have a point and shoot – a Canon G10, which is still a huge, full featured camera with a lot of bells and whistles. I picked this out for a friend who absolutely didn’t want a larger camera (not enough purse room). I honestly expected to be disappointed.

And I was delighted instead. I opened the box and charged the battery and promptly learned that there was no thick manual but a thin ‘getting started’ pamphlet. OK, thought I, I’ll play along, This was intended to be a camera for a non-reader of manuals so let’s pretend… I place the battery and a memory card in the camera, followed the pamphlet and bang (or rather, ‘click’) I had a fantastic picture of my cat. Undaunted I headed outside and started aiming it at trees and scenery. And it did a fantastic job every time. Loaded the pictures into photoshop and was suitably impressed with the image quality. And not once did I take the camera of Auto.

I eventually learned the manual buried away on the accompanying CD and learned that just under the covers was a very sophisticated machine. Plenty of options should my friend ever choose to go beyond point and shoot. Since the camera has image stabilization and is smart about shifting into macro I’m not sure that that ever will be necessary. But if she wants to shoot fireworks, theres a setting for that (and a whole bunch of other things).

Probably the most vital feature of the camera is that it uses a touch screen rather than a lot of knobs and buttons. This will take a bit of getting used to, but once you learn how (and where) to tap on the screen you will find that most features are very simple to use. And the screen is quite large. One warning though – there’s no viewfinder, and huge screens can be hard to read in direct sunlight. So there are times when you will have to point, squint, and shoot. Another thing to keep in mind with a large view screen is that, scratch resistant or not, if you drop it in your purse with a bunch of keys you will eventually scratch it. Get a small case of some sort (there are countless options).

This is a very excellent buy if the price is within your budget. Truth is, I’m not in any rush to present it to my friend.

Rating

Slim, light weight, large screen, well packed and shipped with just a small delay. Brilliant product! Thanks!