Canon PowerShot A85 4MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom

Rating:
Summary: great product !
Review: have given the A85 4 stars although I would have given it 4.5 stars if possible and A80 5 stars. There are 2 basic reasons why I like A80 more than A85, but you may decide otherwise:

1)Bigger CCD Sensor - 1/1.8" on A80 vs. 1/2.7" on A85 - which means 5 million pixels compared to 4 million leading to better image quality.

2)Flip out LCD screen (1.5" on A80 vs 1.8" fixed LCD on A85)- The flip out screen is very useful when taking certain shots. I typically used the flip out screen most when taking
-shots of crowds down the center and of tall buildings by holding the camera above my head,
-in tight spot situations on hikes/treks where I could not shift much by twisting the screen sideways,
-of children/smaller objects on the ground without having to kneel on a sidewalk etc.


Rating:
Summary: Incredible Camera, easy to use with advanced features
Review: Absolutely amazing camera.

First a little backhistory. I owned Canon products for the most of my life. My first digital camera was an HP however.

After my HP broke about 2 years after purchase (hardware failure, nonspecific, 150 bucks to fix at HP) i went with this camera. The difference is amazing.

Canon products have always been a favorite choice of mine due to ease of use. Its settings dial makes it fast and simple to change from mode to mode for various uses.

Say for example your filming your son at the soccer field. you want a nice portrait of him with the field faded in the background. use the portrait mode. Then you can use the same camera to get a fast shutter shot of him playing on the field simply by turning the dial.

you can even shoot a 3 minute movie of him playing on the field using the same camera! All it takes is the turn of the dial.

In addition to the different settings modes, there are 'creative' modes that you can enjoy by changing the shutter speed and the amount of light the lens lets through (arpeture? value)

this can be used to create some amazing effects of sparkling and flowing streams and waterfalls, or of glowing fountains or fireworks... or even "Light trail" photos.

The creative zones are great when you've got plenty of time to play around, and the preset modes are top notch.

Its hard to take a bad picture with this camera.

The "auto" mode is so powerful that you can literally open the box and start taking photos immediately. After a quick read through the manual you'll know how to take photos like a pro, and with just a little bit of learning and experimenting you'll be taking some real artsy shots too ;)

The battery life is amazing, especially with the optional canon NIMH batteries. The batters that came with it are not rechargable, but i was able to shoot over 100 shots + film 5 or 6 highest resolution movies (30 seconds a shot) before the batteries were dead. My NIMH batteries fully charged have taken over 100 shots and are still hot.

Now, about memory. Flash memory is some of the least expensive and better quality memory for digital cameras. The fact that they've gone with flash memory cards here is ideal. It ships with a 32 meg memory card (retail of about ten dollars as of this writing) and getting 256 meg and up is generally under 50 dollars.

Finally we talk about printing features. The canon camera has easy printing and easy sharing with any canon printer with a camera dock. This is largely most Canon printers. You absolutely will love any canon printer you buy, i believe them to be the best printers you can purchase. Canon has entry level printers for well under 100 bucks, some under 50 bucks in some cases (as of this writing, the IP1500 sits on my desktop) and they're the best in their price range, across all price ranges.

I honestly think it would be difficult to make a mistake purchasing this camera.

My only suggestion is to consider the Canon a95 camera, which is 1 megapixel higher, and has a swivel LCD screen. I had no use for the swivel screen and the larger picture depth wasnt worth the extra cash at the time of my purchase, but its something to consider if you're reading this review.



Rating:
Summary: was mine just faulty?
Review: After many days of resource and asking many professional opinions I heard that this was the best 4 megapixel camera that fit all my needs: excellent picture quality, compact and had manual controls.
However, when I finally got the camera I took it everywhere with me to test out the photos, and 50% of the time they were out of focus, or the camera had focused on the wrong thing. I used both types of focus available to no difference. The photos that were in focus were very nice, but not worth the price and the chance of only half of them turning out properly. Also, the camera speed is slightly slower than what I wanted, it had trouble catching a cable car in San Francisco as it drove down the street!
I've returned that camera and have replaced it with a Minolta, my favorite brand though i'd been hesitant because it had fewer manual controls, however, I prefer it much more!
I loved the controls of the A85 though, very convenient and easy to use and the lcd screen was quite large. It's just too bad the pictures weren't of the caliber I was expecting.

Rating:
Summary: GREAT CAMERA!! Very User Friendly - Easy Setup With XP
Review: Got this as a Christmas present from my folks - wonderful! Just put the batteries that come with the camera in - set the date by following the easy prompts and you're shooting pictures within 2 minutes of taking out of box. I have used only the auto setting, and it's great! Downloaded to my Dell 4600 computer very quick and simple!! It uses the same transfer cord as my MP3 player and my Dad's Olympus camera so I only need one cord to download 3 different things! So far, I'm very impressed! It is bigger with the 4 batteries, but also provides a much nicer, easier grip - good for husbands like mine with bigger hands.

The only things I don't like are only a small 128MB card is included and I'll defintely have to buy a bigger card. Second, there is more of a delay than I'd like before flash recharges and you can take another picture, but i think that's a factor of price - this camera really delivers for the price - a faster shutter speed costs more and i don't really need that anyway! It's not much slower than my olk Nikon 35 MM camera. For amateurs like me who just want nice family photos, you can't go wrong with this camera! I'll update my review if there's problems later, but I don't think there will be.

Rating:
Summary: not as good as I thought
Review: I had a Canon S100 over 3 years and took thousands of photos. it was great. now its charger is broken, so I bought A85. the print color is somehow wrong. it is cold and whitened. the plastic body feels cheap. my S100 is better than A85 in print quality.

now i switched to sony P100. it is very good. I want to stick with Cannon but A85 is really disappointing. The only good thing about A85 is that it uses cheap battery and memory card. But the prints are bad.

my advise is that do not buy A85. buy Sony or Cannon's S series.



Rating:
Summary: Not worth it
Review: I had a Kodak, which had failed to open shutters, so I bought Canon A85. I took over 240 pictures of which atleast 40 of them were blurry. I have never had so many blurred pictures. This camera eats battery like crazy. I had a battery tester, which showed the battery to be still in good condtion - but this camera indicates time to change the battery. The color is NOT as good as Kodak - especially when used with Flash. I returned my camera and am going back to Kodak.

Rating:
Summary: Great Camera
Review: Personally, I own the A80, and I like it so much that I got the A85 for my father-in-law. He is an avid picture-taker and loves the ease of the Canon. There are many picture taking options with this camera, and even a rookie can take good, quality pictures. I remember some advice I got when I got my first camera--stick to the companies who make cameras their business. You won't be disappointed with Canon.

Rating:
Summary: Easy to use digital camera!
Review: Point and shoot, very easy to use digital camera.
The picture quality was great too!

Rating:
Summary: Awesome camera
Review: This camera is awesome. I tried several Kodak cameras first -CX7430, DX7440, CX7300 before settling in on this jewel. I really wanted in a big way to use the easyshare stuff for printing and ease of use. I tried to make the Kodaks work but the Kodaks seem to have underpowered flashes. I got lots of blurry and dim shots with the kodaks. The A85 has a dynamic flash and an auto focusing lamp to help focus in dim light. I had much better results with this canon. I highly recommend it. I am even using the picbridge capablity of the A85 connected to a kodak EasyShare printer dock plus -- Awesome results. There is no question that this camera focuses extremely well. Colors are very representative. The biggest negative to the camera is the cheesy plastic cover over the compact flash (the design for this is horrible). But the power of the camera smooths this negative over very quickly. I get an occasional fuzzy shot once in a blue moon (unlike the kodaks I tried - every third shot in the lighting of my home). I would have loved it if cannon would upgrade to USB 2.0 for faster transfer, but the kodaks I tried were USB 1.1 as well. If you are looking for a great point and shoot with room to grow (including manual focus), look no further. This camera rocks. Be sure to buy a rayovac 15 min charger and their NMH batteries (they will save you tons of money).

Rating:
Summary: A great camera, the perfect point-and-shoot
Review: This canon is a decent point-and-shoot digital camera. Its size is great you can pretty easily, stuff it in a pocket. The one thing, this doesn't have is the flip out screen that the A80 had.

The camera has all the extras that make a little more powerful than your standard point-and-shoot. It is aperture priority and shutter priority selection, which is great. If you're new to cameras, shutter speed allows you to control how long the shutter stays open. So the picture you took his dark too dark to use. Just drop your shutter speed from 1/250 of a second to 1/125 of a second this will let in more light. And maybe salvage the picture.

That's what makes these cannons so powerful and great if you want to go beyond the basics of point-and-shoot, but it still will be a great point-and-shoot camera. And the price in these cameras just can't be beat. It's a deal at less than $250.

you can't go wrong, one last bonus to note is that this uses four AA batteries and not a battery pack, which is totally important. If you're on the go and out of juice. No matter what camera you got your not taken pictures. You can buy AA batteries anywhere bonus!

It has awesome case for only $5.95. Search for Amazon item number: B00009U0XI

Have fun and get it done!