RunningClam

A few days ago I have bought a new “notebook”, or better to say, walk-around camera. I’ve spent a couple of hours reading about newest offers from the leading point & shoot digicam manufacturers and found that the market is pretty hot. There are a lot of good little cameras today. Sony W200 and Panasonic FX100 both built on the the quite good 1/1.72″ 12 Megapixel sensor, and they are both not the newest models in the range so could be found pretty cheap - less than $400 in Europe. Canon A650IS has the same 1/1.72″ sensor as Sony W200 plus swivel LCD and much better lens but costs more - over $500 here. Fujifilm F50FD 1/1.6″ 12 Megapixel SuperCCD ultra compact is also could be found for around $400.

I have almost prepared to spent four+ grands for my new day-to-day companion but my attention was caught by Canon A720IS 1/2.5″ 8 Megapixel point & shoot which is priced less that $300 today. It has all the same manual settings and the same zoom range as the Canon A650IS but lacks of swivel LCD and powered by two AAs - not four. Also it’s 20% smaller and just a little bit lighter.

I have downloaded a dozen of full size samples from the both cameras and found that the real difference in image quality (in terms of details and dynamic range) is not worth the almost twice price difference. It’s even hardly noticeable most of the time. So the Canon A720IS became my final choice. And here is my own quick review of this nice and cheap compact digicam.


Canon A720IS | F=35mm, F/5 1/500 sec. | ISO100

First of all, don’t wait a miracle from the tiny sensor digicam. Blown out highlights are here. And the A720IS’ tendency to overexpose even perfectly lit scenes is getting things worser.

Canon A720IS | F=75mm, F/5 1/1000 sec. | ISO100

Even if the scene is perfectly metered the brightly lit white or shiny surfaces, like a tower wall on the picture above, will be blown.

Canon A720IS | F=45mm, F/4.5 1/640 sec. -1 | ISO80

It’s a good habit to underexpose a bit. 1/3 or 2/3. I have underexposed the picture above for one full stop. Fortunately, while you are stuck with ISO80 and ISO100 you won’t get too much noise in the shadows.

Except for that Canon A720IS metering is perfect and very reliable. The same I can say about automatic white balance.

The 6x optically stabilized lens of the A720IS is quite good for its size. Chromatic abberations only visible in the areas of very high contrast and only at the wide aperture settings. Close down the diaphragm to F/5 - F/5.6 and they’re gone. 35-210mm focal range (in 35mm film terms) is enough for almost every day-to-day tasks. You will hardly miss the longer focal distance, though the wider wide angle (e.g. 28mm) would be nice.

The best word to describe Canon A720IS high sensitivity performance is “surprising”. I’ve never expected from the 1/2.5″ camera such clean and detailed ISO400 indoors pics. ISO800, being downsized to 600 pixels or less, also look good enough for blog posts or social networking.

Canon A720IS has a stunning macro mode. You can stick to you subject with the front lens and A720IS will focus on it anyway. The picture above is a 100% crop of the Creative Zen mp3 player. The actual size of the cropped fragment is 14mm * 5mm.

Canon A720IS | F=210mm, F/4.8 1/1000 -1/3 | ISO80

BTW, 8 Megapixel sensor allows to crop out a lot. The picture above is just one-quarter of original snapshot. After downsizing to 640 pixels wide it has enough details to post it on the internet or make a small print.