Rating: 
Summary: Great Camera, great software, features galore
Review: I knew I wanted to get into digital photography but I knew virtually nothing about it. The expert that reviewed the A20 finished his review with the comment that the A20 should be at or near the top of my list. I purchased the camera about a month ago. It is a gem. The 3X optical zoom gives it the versatility I need to compose most shots. The colors are outstanding, especially the flesh tones that are so important to family pics. The macro mode allowed me to take some stunning floral shots. The digital advantage has allowed me to produce our car clubs monthly newsletter using Microsoft Picture Publisher Gold, with photos of the club members automobiles inserted. I purchased the ACK 600 AC adapter to allow hookup to the PC with no battery concerns. The Canon Zoom Browser software is excellent, downloading is a snap with the USB hookup. If you're looking for a lot of camera for the money, excellent photos, good software, "warm" color, then look no further. I have also enjoyed the direct hookup to the television set using the connector supplied with the camera. I love this camera. Good Luck!
Rating:
Summary: Tremendous camera for the price
Review: I bought the A20 this week and am "pushing" it as hard as I can. I maxed the resolution to 1600-1200 and printed the outside shot on 11 by 17 photo paper...the lens is just terrific, the sharpness of focus from near to far is super. I have been asked to do some more 11 by 17 prints for my supervisor. It is a great camera value. The 11 by 17 print -- from a three year old HP 1000 looked as good as some of the 3 megapixel cameras out there at almost twice the price. Those of us used to point and shoot cameras will definately enjoy this camera and even those who are familiar with 35mm SLRs will be impressed. The colors seem very strong and the software provided with the camera does its job very well, however, I like more creative control for Altering photos. It is nice to see that Canon used good lenses for their digital camera, it sure helps.
Rating:
Summary: Lots of Power in a Simple Package
Review: I've had the Powershot A20 for about a week now, and I love taking pictures with this camera! The lens is great, the zoom is great, the software is great....I've used the Olympus 3000 and a Kodak DC240 extensively, and I can't believe how much friendlier this camera is! It turns on really fast, it focuses quickly, and if you prefocus, the notorious digital camera shutter lag is almost non-existant! Make sure you pick up a larger CF card and rechargable batteries, though. 8mb is not enough, and I've gone through 2 sets of AAs in 150-200 pictures...
Rating:
Summary: Great Camera at a great price
Review: I purchased the Powershot A20 3 weeks ago, and I have found it to be a great mid-level d-cam. I got a Powershot A50 about 2 years ago and absolutely loved it. When I had the opportunity to upgrade a few months ago, I was disappointed with the selection of 2.1MP cameras. I decided to wait on the upgrade and keep my A50 1.3MP. When the A20 came out, I had to have it! The thing that stands out most to me is the speed of this camera. It can take pictures much more rapidly than the A50. Playback occurs almost instantly and the USB interface is so much faster than serial. Add great picture quality, decent battery life, and 3x optical zoom and you have a great camera. Moreover, the A20 is the same price that my A50 was 2 years ago! Prices are going down! The best feature with the Canons is the software. The ZoomBrowser is the best tool I have ever seen for managing images. I have around 2000 pictures stored in the ZoomBrowser from my old d-cam and I can see every picture on the screen at once! This makes it easy to find that great shot from 5 months ago. This software has biased me toward Canons for a good reason. The A20's shortcomings include mediocre red-eye reduction, a small LCD, and occasional focusing problems in the Macro mode. These are problems with most Point and Shoot d-cams. I also miss the sleek metal casing featured by the A50. The A20 is plastic, but this does provide better ergonomics than the metal box of the A50. The A20's accessory line includes an underwater case and auxiliary macro and tele lenses. I plan to buy these accessories as soon as I find them on the market. These features put this camera way above others at this price point. There are better d-cams than the A20, but their advantages are few and their prices are double. Overall, this is a high quality d-cam with high end features, outstanding software, and a very good price. It is a terrific value and I am happy that I bought it.
Rating:
Summary: Photography is (now) fun!
Review: I never thought I would enjoy photography so much. We bought this camera while we were on vacation, and the very first photos we took with it were excellent, despite the fact that we had the resolution set to 640 x 480. The zoom is wonderful - as I learned when I wanted to take a sunset photo but some trees were in the way on the left: I used the zoom to get past them. One of the sunset photos was printed by EFrames.com onto regular photo paper, and I've got it sitting on mydesk: you can't tell that it was taken with a digital camera. This is a great, well thought-out product that is fun to use.
Rating: 
Summary: This Camera is perfect for the point and shoot crowd
Review: This camera is great! It has a 3x zoom, great picture quality and best of all it runs on 4AA batteries which makes it great for vacations. I suggest getting rechargeable high-capacity batteries and a charger. I wish this camera would have included a case as the camera body is made of plastic and the LCD screen is exposed to scratches and nicks. This is a good camera for those new to digital cameras who don't need percise control over the picture settings. If you do need the control I suggest a Nikon Coolpix 990 or a Nixon G1. Overall this camera gets 4 stars for picture quality, size and easy of use. However, it misses the final star for being on a 2.1 megapixel camera when most new cameras are 3 megapixels and above.
Rating:
Summary: Takes great pictures
Review: The A20 arrived yesterday and I have been having a blast taking pictures of my three kids in action. The camera is very easy to use, I was shooting pictures 5 minutes after opening the box. So far I have shot 155 images, all on the first set of NiMH AA.... The upload process to the computer was straightforward and works quickly via the USB connection. The 8MB memory card provided with the camera is not really adequate for too many pictures. I bought the 128MB Viking flash memory card along with the camera. It just popped in and it worked. I like the 3X optical zoom on the camera, it gives me some choice on how to compose the pictures. The colors from this camera are amazing, very lifelike. The camera saves all the images as JPG's (in one of three levels of compression). The JPG's have been easy to email, the files are not too large. The flash provides good coverage indoors, but I have not tried many shots more then about 10 feet. There is no short video clip mode which some other digital cameras have, but I thought this was more of a gimmick then a useful feature. If you want a digital camera which is easy to use and takes great pictures this camera is a good choice.
Rating:
Summary: Great Camera!
Review: This camera, for the price, is great quality. It has all the features I wanted: Black and white pictures, GREAT ZOOM feature (7.5X's!) thumbnail view, option to turn off the screen (to conserve energy) and gives you a quick glance at the picture you just took- IF you use it with the screen on, your batteries will be eaten up in no time! This camera does have better battery life though than other cameras. The picture quality is AWESOME- I do recomend you buy an external disk drive to upload and view photos on your computer. This will save batteries and the pictues look better so you can decide if you want to keep them or not. I recommend the Sandisk external drive, which is small, cheap and sooooo easy to install- I was done and thought I did something wrong because it was sooo easy!! Also, I already dropped this camera once on a cement floor and it still works like a dream! What more can you ask for? BUY IT NOW!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Battery
Review: This is one of the worst cameras I have ever encounted. The batteries have to be replaced after 50 shots. Even if you use re chargeable batteries they only last maybe 75 shots The shortest battey life I have ever seen a a camera.
Rating:
Summary: Love at first snap
Review: Saw the ad, checked it out on dpreview.com, bought it. Took less than an hour to set it up, take 35 pictures, install the software, download the pictures. Took pictures that were supposed to be the camera's weak points - low light indoor pictures (poor focus) and some at max flash distance (~12 feet). Everything came out perfectly. Love the focus, the flash, the speed to focus and the lack of delay once you push the button to actually snap the picture. Simple to use yet it produces amazing results. Plenty of advanced features should you decide to use them. The included Photo Stitch software allows you to stitch multiple exposures into a panorama view. Minor limitations: only supports USB downloads (no RS232 or firewire), all photos stored in JPEG format (does have choice of 3 compressions - normal, fine, superfine) and finally the zoom lacks fine control in that it always zooms further than I'd like. All in all a terrific value!
|
