You can also be a hotshot 'Powershooter'. Review on Canon PowerShot A640

Hitherto, in the domain of film cameras, brands such as Nikon, Pentax, Minolta, Canon, Olympus, and Yashica ruled the roost. But with the advent of the more electronically oriented ‘film less’ digital cameras things have changed. Electronic giants such as Sony, Panasonic, and Samsung have entered the fray to queer the pitch. These companies have a head start in the field of electronics and all they needed to do was to find and fuse suitable optics to come out with their own brand of cameras. Sony proved to be an unqualified success with their high precision Carl Zeiss optics. This has forced the traditional camera makers out of their comfort zone. Nikon, Pentax, and Olympus which were not that much into electronics are finding the transition to digital photography a little difficult, but they have an awesome reputation when it comes to cameras.

Canon, however, have a significant presence in electronics and are finding the transition much easier, and that reminds me I must get on with my review on the product in question.

The Canon PowerShot A640 Digital Camera belongs to the genre of compact cameras which is what most consumers would be looking for to buy. With so many compact digital cameras out there you may well ask … “what is so special about this one?” Well to tell you the truth, a lot of things are special about this camera.

RESOLUTION:

Let’s start with the resolution because that’s what makes a photo look sharp. The A640 is equipped with a 10 Megapixel CCD sensor. The digital images taken with this camera are breathtaking, crisp, and vivid. Generally, a 3 or 4 MP camera will give excellent 4 x 6 pics. But, try zooming on to a person in a group photo and you will understand why these comparatively low resolution images simply will not do. In a A640, however, one can zoom and crop the image to leave out unnecessary detail and still come up with a razor sharp image. Most people wrongly take it into their mind that they don’t need such high resolution photos because they won’t be dealing with poster size photos every other day. The point is, the more the resolution the more it is easy to cut and crop images to suit one’s needs without comprising on the quality of the end image. That is where 10 MP comes in handy.

OPTICAL AND DIGITAL ZOOM:

Most compact cameras come with 3x optical zoom and their MP resolution is not quite enough for them to add to that with digital zoom. On the other hand the A640 comes with a 4x optical zoom and has enough mega pixel muscle to make it 16x zoom without comprising on quality of the image. So you practically have a 16x zoom camera.

LCD VIEWFINDER:

The A640 comes with a large 2.5 inches, 115000 pixel, LCD screeen. Now, that’s a lot of real estate in terms of compact camera screens. The photos look larger and there is enough detail for the user to decide whether the photo is good enough or there is need for a retake. In some cameras the screens are so small that you won’t know how good or how bad the photo is until you connect it to your pc or get the print. Of course, by then it is probably too late for a retake.

I still haven’t come to the real juicy part. The A640 sports a swivel ‘vari-angle’ screen which means you can shoot pictures at almost any angle and still get a perfect shot. Now, you don’t need to bend down to shoot subjects below your eye level or step on a pedestal to get a better overhead angle. All you need to do is to adjust the sceen to your line of sight. This camera gives you the freedom to shoot at crazy angles. This design also helps in protecting the screen better from scratches and dust as it can be swivelled facing the back of the camera and tucked in like you would normally do in a camcorder.

SHOOTING MOVIES:

The A640 allows you to shoot movies at 30 frames per second and resolution of 640 x 480. What is great is that you can watch the playback on TV in full screen mode with audio. That’s a handy feature because you don’t need a camcorder anymore to shoot your movies. This camera allows you to shoot extra long movies unlike some digital cameras. It supports even a 4 GB memory card which can get you close to 40 minutes of high quality video. Some cameras don’t support memory cards beyond 1GB. There are also options for shooting at 320 x 240 resolution and 15 fps which allows you to shoot video upto 175 minutes on a 4 GB card.

OPTICAL VIEW FINDER:

The A640 comes with a real image optical viewfinder. The advantage is that one can switch off the LCD screen to save battery life. The optical viewfinder helps you to zoom on to the subject or use the 35mm wide angle with ease while composing a picture.

MEMORY:

Canon offers a 32 MB MMC card with this camera but it is nowhere sufficient for a camera of such high resolution. The sensible thing to do is buy a 1 GB card. This camera was tested on a 4 GB card and it gave 960 photos at Superfine (3648x2736) resolution and in large format. With same superfine resolution and in small format you get 3,782 high quaality photos. Set at normal (1600x1200) resolution and 4 x 6 format you get 13,244 photos. At email resolution (640x480) you get a whopping 82,766 snaps. With a high capacity memory card you can actually use this camera as your digital photo album.

BUILD AND QUALITY:

The A640 doesn’t look like an expensive toy like most compact digital cameras do. It looks and feels like a real camera. The camera comes in a two tone grey black finish. There’s a solid feel to this camera and the user feels comfortable holding it while taking pictures. The camera is slightly heavier than normal compact digital cameras and the four AA cells that you need to operate this camera with actually don’t help its cause. Also, it doesn’t fit in your shirt pocket if that is what you are looking for.

MISCELLANEOUS:

It is not the lightest camera on the market and slightly bulky too for a compact model but it’s high on performance. Actually, the use of AA alkaline batteries give you freedom to shoot whenever you like instead of the rechargeable lithium ion batteries that need to be charged before you can use them which means you can be caught napping every now and then. You can also use rechargeable NiMH batteries if you want to save on costs.

The A640 also allows for attaching a separate wide angle lens to get more in the picture frame or a telephoto lens for shooting distant objects. Both the lenses need to be purchased separately but they are affordable. The swivel LCD screen can be used for taking excellent self portraits.

The camera features 21 separate shooting modes which make taking pictures a cinch. You can use ISO 800 for flash free shooting in places where flash is not permitted. The camera also comes with a full function manual mode for the serious photographer.

In a nutshell, the picture quality compares favourably with the high end digital SLR cameras minus the exhorbitant costs.

Mbfarookh.