The Best Digital Camera for the Typical User - Canon PowerShot

Author's Rating:

Pros: easy to use, takes great photos, small, image stabilization

Cons: none for this type digital camera and price range

The Bottom Line: 
I loved the Canon PowerShot, so bought one for mom, so she'd move into the digital age.

Author's Review
I bought the Canon PowerShot A570 to replace a great HP point and shoot digital camera that I’d flat worn out. I take photos almost daily for web publication and for the school newspaper. Seriously, I don’t go anywhere without a digital camera tucked in my purse or backpack. I never know when I’ll see something that I can snap and use.

Before buying this digital camera, I did a lot of research and also spoke with pvreditor. Since I depend very heavily on my digital camera, I wanted to make sure I got one that was easy to use and one that would take high quality photos.

I should note that I have a Canon Rebel which I love, but it’s a high end digital camera. It takes more time and work to get photos. The photos turn out fabulous, but there are times when I need a point and shoot and can just snap a quick picture and continue on with my day. I use the Rebel for planned photo shoots. I use the Canon PowerShot for day-to-day photography.

The Canon PowerShot camera is very intuitive. It’s definitely the easiest point and shoot digital camera I’ve worked with, and I’ve used a lot with working with the school paper. In fact, I bought one for my Mom for Christmas. She’s not a techie by any stretch and was not keen on jumping on the digital camera bandwagon. She was nervous, but she made some photos immediately and not problems understanding the basics on this digital camera.

The LCD screen is a nice size for the overall size of the camera which is compact – not the smallest out but fits nicely in your hand. I generally use the LCD screen. It is accurate on framing. I really like it. My mom is used to a 35mm. She likes the eye hole, so she uses that. No problem. I’ve used that too. The viewfinder frames accurate as well.

This camera can be set on automatic. There’s a dial on top. Just click to the green AUTO button. That will cover most photos. For many users, that may be all they ever do. Then point and shoot. Instant photo. And usually a nice one. The pixels are at 7.4. I use the highest quality setting and can run large photos – 8 x 10 for example – and the photos are crisp.

With the dial, it’s possible to set the camera for more specialized situations. Some examples are portrait (for close up), landscape (for distance), and night snapshoot (pretty obvious there). These settings do not equal the customized settings on a camera like the Rebel, but they do work well. When you click to each, you also see printed on the LCD screen, so if you don’t remember what the icons are, then you turn the dial and it tells you. That’s really helpful for many users – like my students.

There’s a 4x digital zoon built in. Push a little knob right or left to go in or out. Again, this is not a professional camera, so the zoom is not super powerful. Photos are better if you walk in closer or out further, but the zoom is pretty decent. There are times when I don’t want to get right up on someone, and the quality is good on the zoom.

The Canon PowerShot A570 comes with a built in flash. It can be turned off if needed. It’s a decent flash for a point and shoot. I do try to get within 8 to 10 feet if I’m using flash. That usually works well. Sometimes I get red eye, but that seems to be common with Canon cameras. Red eye can be corrected with photo editing software. I use Abobe PhotoShop.

One really nice feature on this camera is the image stabilizer. It’s hard to find that feature on a less expensive point and shoot digital camera. Basically the image stabilizer keeps the photo in focus. This helps on zoom ins and if you’re hands shake a bit as you’re shooting. That’s just built in. You don’t have to turn it on. You’d never know it’s there except you get clearer photos.

There are other options on the camera. There’s a menu button, and that’s easy to understand and use. The more advanced functions (including setting the camera to different quality levels so that the memory card will hold more or less photos) are all covered in the instruction booklet. The booklet is good. Some camera booklets are really confusing. The one with the camera is not.

Once you’ve snapped a photo, you will briefly see the photo on the LCD screen. You can delete if you want or not. If you want to look at the photo again or at all the photos you’ve shot, you can slide a button down to view the photos. I think my mom’s model now had a button to push instead of the slide. It’s similar though.

The Canon PowerShot uses a standard SD card. It comes with a 16 which will hold only 6 photos or so. Not many. I’d suggest getting a 2 gig card. That will hold a lot of photos.

The camera can be connected to the computer with a cable, but it’s much easier to use a card reader. I use the SanDisk. It runs about $12. It’s much faster and more convenient. New computers often have the media card slots built in. My new computer does have the card slots. You can also take the media card to most any store that does photos. My Mom takes her card to Wal-Mart and does her photos there.

The Canon PowerShot runs on 2 double A batteries. This is nice. It’s easy to find double A batteries. Do buy rechargeables. Standard batteries do not last very long when taking digital photos. Always carry extras. It’s no fun to run out of power when you’re taking photos.

I couldn’t be happier with my Canon PowerShot digital camera. It’s easy to use and takes really good photos. I use it much more than my Canon Rebel (which is a wonderful camera), but it’s nice to have a small camera that doesn’t require much technical expertise. This is the perfect camera for the typical user.