Canon PowerShot A650IS 12.1MP Digital Camera with 6x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom by Canon
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Digital camera reviews of Canon PowerShot A650IS 12.1MP Digital Camera with 6x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom
Digital camera Review: Good camera but
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a good little camera. I bought it to upgrade my ancient A70, which I liked except for its postage stamp lcd. My main complaint about the camera is the price, and that's why I don't give it a higher rating. It was selling for under $300 in the early summer. I watched the price rise to over $400, looked around, and bought it elsewhere for $350 by a supplier who hadn't apparently caught on to the price increase. The $475 that it's selling for today is way too much; you can get an excellent digital slr, the Canon Rebel XSi for $650! Anyone know why the price increased?
Pro:
Great Canon interface and controls.
Lots of great manual controls.
Good videos with sound.
I like and use the neat hinge on the lcd.
Lcd size is sufficient.
Histograms on the photo playback.
Good optical and digital zoom with a little color-coded bar on the lcd that tells you when you're zoom is getting into an area where your photos could suffer from camera shake.
Image stabilization.
Cons:
Overpriced.
The 12 megapixels is overkill. If you need great resolution, why not get a slr with a good lens? I shoot at 5 or 8 mp.
Narrow range of aperture compared to a slr. At the small end, it only goes to f8. You can stop it down to f2.8--not bad, I suppose.
Photos are noisy at higher ISO numbers.
When I was shopping I recall seeing other point-and-shoot Canons for quite a bit less. You might have to drop down a few megapixels, give up image stabilization, and/or the lcd hinge. Sorry, I don't recall the model numbers, but it might be worth looking around. If I were to do it over, I'd buy a less expensive super compact and a Rebel xsi.
Digital camera Review: Great Camera
Summary: 4 Stars
After doing a ton of research I decided on the Powershot A650. Amazon gets a 5+ for customer service, because my one day shipping took 4 days and they reimbursed me for it. Back to the camera, I have had it since March and I like it so far. It is much more camera than I need as I was told by friends but I plan on learning how to use all the extra features that it has. I love the software that came with it how it only loads the previously unloaded pictures to the computer, my old camera didnt do that. The reason I gave it a 4 instead of a 5 is (unless I missed something somewhere) it doesn't let you know that your batteries are low until its to late, and that it is slow in taking multiple pictures one right after the other, that may be in part that I currently have a sandisk 2gb ultra II and I have read that there are some better cards. All in all I'm happy with it.Digital camera Review: Great Camera
Summary: 5 Stars
It is a great camera... The only downside is the flash it leaves much to be desire t would be nice if I had a hot shoe. But I have a slave flash that i can use the old fashioned way... manually. I love the picture quality.Digital camera Review: Great Camera for any situation.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an advanced point and shoot camear. I didn't buy this for super high detail or picture quality so I won't expand on that. Do a google search for this and look for Steve's review for meaty details.
This camera is good because:
Has a flip screen if you want to take photos from different angles.
Has a very nice macro capability which allows you to focus at a very close distance.
6x optical zoom is kinda sweet. Digital zoom is 100% useless by the way, ignore this specification when buying cameras.
Image stabilization is nice too I suppose.
**Best feature** - to me at least...
Use 4 AA batteries which you can buy anywhere. Get the rechargeable, high mAH rating AA's such as 2600mAH(written on the battery)
I dropped this camera today while attaching a fish eye lens to it and it was a bad drop. The camera still works without fault so far. I don't recommend dropping your's if you own one.
Digital camera Review: Great Camera with tons of features for an excellent price !
Summary: 5 Stars
All previous reviewers have done a fantastic job so I won't bore you with the same. All I can say is that I bought it about two weeks ago, took it to a trip to Southern California and took over 500 pix and 4/5 flix using a 4GB and a 1GB SD card.
The outdoor pix are absolutely phenomenal, indoor ones with out using flash are too noisy and the ones with flash using Auto are extra ordinarily yellow, but I am too new to it to play with the settings. Plus this is my first Canon Digicam so I am not familiar with the menus and settings that much.
Overall the pix are great, size & weight is OK, I love the swivel LCD screen (a must have for me, coming from Nikon CP4500) 6X zoom is much better than generic 3X. I wish it were a little faster. I found it to be a bit slow to start and in between shots.