Strike a Pose Baby

Author's Rating:

Pros: Easy to use, Many features

Cons: Video quality not the greatest

The Bottom Line: 
This is a great camera at a good price for the beginner and the professional.

Author's Review
I have a Canon Powershot A570 and I think it is the best digital camera available in its price range. I admit that I am not a very technical person, so this review might not have all the technical terms you might usually find in a camera review. But if you are like me, you want a camera that is easy to use, will work well and take quality pictures. I have found all of that with the Canon PowerShot A570.

The Canon PowerShot has so many features that are absent on other cameras in its price range. Most cameras just have Auto, video, and macro. But the PowerShot A570 has many other settings. Some of the settings are portrait, landscape, night, kids & pets, snow, foliage, beach, fireworks, indoor, aquarium, underwater, and manual. There is even a macro button that allows me to take close up shots. I use the “kids & pets” setting for action shots. The subjects come out clear and the picture is not blurry. I have used the “foliage” with macro button setting to take close up shots of flowers. The colors are vivid and bright. The “manual” setting allows me to set options like ISO and flash output. Everything about setting this camera is so straightforward that it is a joy to use. I do not have to go looking for the menu that will let me do what I want to do. Most options are available on the settings wheel or the screen display menu.

As part of the video capture setting, it allows you to choose from Standard, Fast Frame Rate, and Compact. The different settings allow you to record videos up to about 10 minutes in length (just be sure to have a tripod so your arm does not get tired- I learned that the hard way). I do not have a video camera, so this is nice. I am able record short videos that have fairly decent sound and video quality.

The camera has a stabilization feature and a face finder feature. I like these features because I have had pictures taken with other cameras to come out blurry because my hand was not steady. With this camera, that is not a problem.

It uses a Secure Digital memory card. I like that because the SD cards are cost efficient for the amount of memory. I recently bought a 2 GB memory card for $20. With this camera, I can use the highest quality settings and still get close to one thousand pictures on my card.

Just because this is a point and shoot camera, does not mean the quality of the pictures are less than professional. The resolution allows for large picture sizes. I have entered a few photo contests using my camera. With some of my pictures, I have blown them up to poster size prints. That was something I never would have thought of with my old camera. Overall, this is an excellent point and shoot camera. It will turn the occasionally photographer into an avid one. I know that it is what happened to me.