High Quality Photos With Many Options For The Photographer

Author's Rating:

Pros: Whether on the auto or manual settings, produces quality photos.

Cons: Flash recycle speed slightly slow, flash output in dimly lit rooms is weak.

The Bottom Line: 
The Canon A720IS is for the serious photographer, the novice experimenting in taking artistic photos, or for fans of pointing & shooting; It has several options to accommodate everyone.

Author's Review
I am an amateur plus photographer, in that I have earned a photography certificate and love taking pictures. I am not a novice, yet I wouldn't call myself an expert in photo taking - especially digital photo shooting. Having said that, I had come to loathe using the small, point & shoot digitals out there. I missed using my Nikon 35 MM, and all of its manual perks, such as adjusting depth of field and shutter speed time.

Having two children - and wanting to get back into my artistic photography of long days passed - I had asked for an SLR for Christmas, as a collective gift from several relatives. Well, imagine my disappointment when I opened The Canon Powershot A7201S - yet another digital point & shoot! I was assured by my family that research was indeed done, and that this camera had all the features I was looking for in producing better quality photos. Ok, so I said I would give it a trial run before returning it.

After playing with the camera for a few weeks in various conditions and situations, I did learn to love it. The camera has many, many options, which may be overwhelming at first, especially for a novice photographer or people used to the comfortability of point & shoot. But that is the beauty of this camera...if you want to point and shoot, the camera makes it so easy for you to do so, with several settings to accommodate your situation - auto, portrait, indoor, landscape, kids & pets, etc...

However, if you want to exert your inner photographer, and have more control in taking your photos, this camera can accommodate you too. The manual settings let you take creative control over everything from shutter speed, to aperture settings, to film speed, and flash output.

The zoom is quite impressive, and I have taken amazing photos on the macro setting. The "kids & pets" setting actually works in that it stops my very active children's motions for great shots. I have gotten many compliments on my photographs lately; compliments I have not received since putting away my professional 35 mm and picking up a digital point & shoot several years prior.

The body of the camera turned out to be a pleasant surprise as well. Its not as small and square as a typical point & shoot; you actually feel like you are holding something slightly substantial while taking your photos, without the bulk of a typical SLR.

A few complaints: The flash output in dimly lit indoor settings isn't too strong, in that if you photograph a subject just a few feet away from you in a dimly lit room the picture will come out dark and grainy. Also, the flash recycle time is long between flash shots. I did the research on this, and this camera's lag is actually shorter than most digital cameras in its class, however it is still a few second wait for the flash to recycle from one pic to the next.

All in all, the Canon PowerShot A720IS is an impressive digital camera with most of the perks of an SLR without the price of one.