Canon PowerShot A300 -- A Perfect Niche Player

Author's Rating:

Pros: Excellent picture quality, great value, ability to control photography in manual mode.

Cons: Battery Life.

The Bottom Line: 
Great Pictures, Great Features, Great Value. A great camera for those who use "point and shoot" cameras. If you don't need an optical zoom, buy it!!

Author's Review
Ok, who here finds the entire process of buying a digital camera to be incredibly confusing and frustrating?

How many megapixels do you need? Is two too few, is five too many? Do I need a camera that will fit into an "Altoids mint" box, will this be too small, will it be too big?

These and other questions make buying decisions and comparisons of competing products difficult. Recently, I was searching for a camera to take pictures on vacation, and I found the Canon PowerShot A300 to be the perfect camera for my needs. Here's why.

The question you have to ask yourself is what are you going to use the camera for? Are you (a)seriously into photography or (b) do you want a camera that will take decent take snapshots on vacation? If you're a serious photographer -- read no further this is NOT the camera for you.

The Bottom Line

This camera is for the "point and shoot" crowd. It takes great pictures in the automatic mode, right out of the box. It has many useful "extra" features (such as movie mode and digital zoom) which are nice to have for occasional use. However, if you plan to use any of these regularly, look for another camera.

Overall, the Camera will be perfect for many casual photographers. The combination of price and features make it a real bargain.

Brief Product Description

* The A300 is a 3.3 megapixel camera. This means that the camera is designed to take pictures that can be blown up to 8"x10" size and still look decent.

* It has no optical zoom (i.e., zoom lens) but a 5.1x digital zoom. (More on this below).

* Pictures are recorded on a Compact Flash Storage card. The camera comes with a 16 meg card, which is adequate to start, but you'll probably want to get a larger card in time.

* The camera is small, weighing only a few ounces. It can fit in a shirt pocket.

* Canon claims that the lens is the equivalent of 39mm (the same as most 35mm point and shoot cameras), but I think it may have a wider angle (more scenery in the picture) than that.

* The camera has a movie mode which will enable you to take movie clips, and a microphone that will allow for audio clips. (More on this below).

* The camera has an "automatic" mode where all you have to do is point and click, but also has a "manual" mode that enables you to control various aspects of the photography such as "white balance", "shutter speed", "ISO".


Analysis of features

1. Picture Quality. This is obviously the most important feature of any camera, especially a digital camera. With this camera, it's great. I've taken pictures in a variety of light conditions, and consistently find vivid colors and good resolution.

2. Megapixels. These days, digital cameras are sold on the basis of how many megapixels they have. The mentality is "more is better". Some stores will lead you to believe that unless you have 3, 4 or 5 megapixels you won't get good pictures. This is false.

The real question is what are you using the camera for. Do you want to take pictures to share with friends on the internet? If so, a 1 megapixel camera will be more than enough. In fact, you may want less to keep the size of files that you'll be sending down.

Do you want to take snapshots? If this is the case, you'll be fine with a 2 megapixel camera.

Do you want to blow up pictures to 8x10 size? 3 megapixels should do the trick for most casual photographers.

Do you want serious pictures -- 4 or 5 megapixels. However, if you're a serious photographer, there's still nothing that will beat a good SLR 35mm camera for photo quality.

The Canon A300 has three basic modes for pictures. Normal (adequate for internet sharing), Fine (adequate for snapshots) and Superfine (designed for blow ups). If you're a point and shoot photographer, the "Fine" mode will be what you use most of the time, but it's nice to have the Superfine feature for the occasional special shot.

3. Digital Zoom. Probably the biggest "criticism" I've seen about this camera is the fact that it "only" has a digital zoom. What a digital zoom does is "blow up" a portion of the picture. So, if camera is a 3.0 megapixel camera and you blow up the picture to twice it's size (so 1/4 of the picture is in the "frame"), you've effectively reduced your camera to a 750k pixel camera. An optical zoom lens, on the other hand magnifies the image that is being sent to the camera so that the picture which has been blown up to twice it's size will still get the full 3.0 megapixels. The long and short of it. Optical is better.

Now, the question is do you care? I use the camera to take mostly snapshots of people. If I want the images to be larger, I don't need to use the Zoom, I can move three or four steps closer to my subject, and they will be larger in my frame, without a zoom. For this reason, the A300 is great for me. The digital zoom is there if I have the odd shot which needs it. However, having decided that I will rarely use the zoom in this camera, I didn't want to pay extra for it. If you care, don't buy this camera, you can find similar equipment with an optical zoom for $50-$100 more.

Not including a digital zoom, and therefore, keeping the price low, was a conscious design choice. This should not be held against the product.

One additional point, most digital cameras with optical zoom lenses use a motor driven zoom. If the motor breaks, the camera is useless. So, if you're not going to use a zoom often, it may, in fact be a liability, not an asset.

4. Memory. The A300 uses CompactFlash memory chips. This is one of the standard memory cards. It comes with a 16 megabite card, which in "fine" mode, will give you about 25 -30 pictures. I would recommend upgrading to a 64 meg card >100 pictures at least. On a recent vacation, I used a 128 meg card, which gave me space than I needed for the entire vacation.

Pictures must be downloaded to your computer, and can be done so with an included USB cable. IMPORTANT -- if you have an older non-USB computer, don't buy this camera, you won't be able to download pictures. For faster downloads, consider a Chip Reader (about $20).

5. Viewfinder. The camera has both a 1.5" LCD screen, and a secondary viewfinder through the top of the camera (similar to most point and shoot cameras). In shadow, the LCD can be a little difficult to see, but otherwise provides a sharp picture. My biggest problem with the secondary viewfinder is that you only get the bottom 3/4 of the picture, so unless you correct for this, the subject of your photo won't be centered. The LCD is also great for viewing pictures that you've taken.

6. Other features. As I mentioned, this camera is chock full of features. The manual mode gives the user the ability to control many aspects of photography. You can take short movie clips and short sound bites. There's a "macro" mode, which enables you to take photos as close as 2" (I got a great picture of a butterfly). You can take pictures in color, black and white, sepia, etc. It has a mode where you can take pictures to "stitch together" using supplied software, to take panoramic photos. In fact, the Canon A300 probably has more features than any camera of it's price. However, as stated, you may use these features on occasion, but most of the time you'll be using the standard settings. The features are nice to have, though for the occasional shot.

7. Flash. Camera comes with red eye protection. Honestly, the flash is a bit disappointing as I found that it may have lit up subjects too much. However, for most indoor photography, with decent light, the flash isn't needed at all. After experimentation, to learn when the flash is needed, the results were more than acceptable.

8. Battery Life. Short answer, carry extra batteries with you. Taking photos through the LCD, I get 80-100 shots per set of extra life alkaline batteries. However, by using the secondary viewfinder, I can probably double this. The camera uses standard AA batteries, which is nice, since you can find them anywhere. If you're going to take a lot of pictures, consider rechargable batteries.

Value

The camera is one of the least expensive 3 megapixel cameras on the market, and has some of the best features. It's a real price performer. It's a fantastic camera for the point and shoot crowd. While it is not a camera for the serious photographer, the features provide tremendous versatility with the occasional shot that needs something extra comes along.