Canon Powershot A700 Review

Canon Powershot A700The Canon Powershot A700 was created to be an easy to use and reasonably priced consumer level digital camera. In most ways it is an average camera, but it has an optical zoom better than most in its class and price range. In this highly competitive digital camera market, can a slightly better zoom push the A700 to the top of its class? bDigitalCameras takes stock of this A-series Powershot.

Included in Box
Camera, wriststrap, basic and advanced user guides, USB cable, AV output cable, 2 AA batteries, 16 MB SD memory card

Major Specs
6.0 megapixel CCD, 6x optical zoom and a 4x digital zoom, 2.5 inch LCD screen, ISO 80-800, 16:9 widescreen mode, VGA movies w/ sound up to 60 FPS, SD card storage

Look and Feel
When I first picked up this camera, the thought came to my mind that I had better never drop it. It feels like a simple drop would make it break in half. It just feels cheap. It is not something that you are going to want to take on rough trips, as it does not seem to be the type of camera that could take a beating. Don’t let that steer you away from this camera though as it has got several nice qualities.

The LCD screen on the back of the camera is a nice big 2.5″ though non-adjustable. This has become the standard for many digital cameras, and I can see why, as it is just a great screen size. Though the size is great, the quality of the screen isn’t as high as I have seen on other cameras.

Picking up the camera and snapping shots with it feels pretty good as the buttons you need are all within reach without straining the fingers to reach. One thing that was a bit annoying is that the A700 doesn’t really seem to balance in my hand the way some other cameras do. It does not feel like it is going to slip out of my hand and drop to the floor by any means but it definitely feels different and thus a little awkward.

Menu System
I was actually quite impressed with the menu system on the Canon Powershot A700. Too many times I will press a menu button on other devices, only to be bombarded with choices. Many times I don’t even know where to begin as the options presented do not seem to be what I am looking for at all. When I pressed the menu button on the A700 though, I was immediately greeted with a few straight forward options like Red-Eye assist, Digital Zoom, the Date stamp, etc. They actually put the options I would be looking for on the main page of the menu.

The Zoom
By far one of my favorite aspects of this camera is the optical zoom. The 6x optical zoom is absolutely wonderful. I don’t even have to approach the digital zoom most of the time with a camera like this. The picture is crystal clear when taken with the optical zoom. If something is still too far away, I’d rather move forward than use the digital zoom, but it is there for me if I really need it, creating a combined zoom of up to 24x. Interestingly enough, the digital zoom was set to off by default.

Cycle Time
The cycle time of taking a picture was kind of annoying if using the flash. Sitting down with my stop watch I recorded a few times that I think you will find interesting.

W/ Flash W/out Flash
4.5s 1.3
4.3s 1.2
4.5s 1.3
4.4s 1.3
4.4s 1.3

As you can tell from the above series of tests, the time it takes for the camera to get ready for another picture is not very bad without the flash. There was almost no noticeable wait time. However, with the flash, it took approximately 4.4 seconds on average for the camera to get ready for the next picture. This can be very annoying when you want to snap more than just one image in a reasonable amount of time.

Please note that when you first get the camera out of the box, it is automatically set in “2 second review mode”, which means that after you snap the picture, the current snapshot will stay on the screen for at least 2 seconds. When running these tests I turned the review mode off. With the review mode on, you can expect longer delays between shots.

Movie Mode
You have got to love how many new cameras are including a movie mode for shooting home videos. The Powershot A700 includes this feature and the default setting on this camera gives you a 640×480 recording at 30 FPS. It does have the ability to shoot all the way up to 60 FPS for an even smoother video, but you have to chop the resolution down to 320×240. Unfortunately, you can’t move the optical zoom in and out while you’re shooting the video, but it does let you zoom in and out with the digital zoom. The A700 produces .MOV files which are compatible with Apple’s QuickTime. A version of QuickTime is included on the CD that is packaged with the camera.

Captured Image

Quick Image Test

Crop of captured image, Click image for full resolution image

Conclusion
Overall this is a pretty decent camera. If you don’t mind the long wait after taking a flash picture or the cheap feel to it, then it really does have some great features. The 6x optical zoom, the video mode, and the 2.5 inch LCD are all absolutely wonderful. It seems to get in focus really quickly as I never had one problem with the focus taking a while to pick up. It has 20 different shooting modes including portrait, landscape, night scene, snow, indoor, among others. It does take AA batteries as opposed to a rechargable battery pack, so keep that in consideration.

There was no onboard storage, and the memory that came with the A700 was a 16 MB SD card, so count on dishing out some more money for a card that can hold more than 6 or 7 full resolution pictures. I recommend getting a high speed memory card if you’re interested in using the continuous shooting mode and the movie mode, as it will really open up the camera for you and make it feel just a bit more responsive. You can snap a couple of pictures in a few seconds using the continuous shooting mode, which is great when you don’t want to miss that key moment.

The price of the camera is also very reasonable, coming in at around $300 for a 6 megapixel camera with all these features. I consider this to be a really good deal. This seems to me to be the ideal first camera for a family (not a college or high school student who’s going to give it a beating). It’s well priced and produces great image quality.

Street Price
I found this camera to be normally priced in the $300 region. However, you can find the Canon Powershot A700 priced between $281 and $350

June 22nd, 2006 Posted by David in Uncategorized at 12:39 pm 2 Comments »
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2 Comments »

  1. [...] Bdigitalcamera has published a review of the 6 megapixel Canon PowerShot A700 and here are their findings - “Overall this is a pretty decent camera. If you don’t mind the long wait after taking a flash picture or the cheap feel to it, then it really does have some great features. The 6x optical zoom, the video mode, and the 2.5 inch LCD are all absolutely wonderful. It seems to get in focus really quickly as I never had one problem with the focus taking a while to pick up. It has 20 different shooting modes including portrait, landscape, night scene, snow, indoor, among others. It does take AA batteries as opposed to a rechargable battery pack, so keep that in consideration.” [...]

    Pingback by Digital Camera Reviews, Comparisons and Ratings - Digital Camera Tracker Blog — August 20, 2006 @ 12:11 pm

  2. [...] Bdigitalcamera has published a review of the 6 megapixel Canon PowerShot A700 and here are their findings - “Overall this is a pretty decent camera. If you don’t mind the long wait after taking a flash picture or the cheap feel to it, then it really does have some great features. The 6x optical zoom, the video mode, and the 2.5 inch LCD are all absolutely wonderful. It seems to get in focus really quickly as I never had one problem with the focus taking a while to pick up. It has 20 different shooting modes including portrait, landscape, night scene, snow, indoor, among others. It does take AA batteries as opposed to a rechargable battery pack, so keep that in consideration.” [...]

    Pingback by Canon PowerShot A700 Review At Bdigitalcamera — September 14, 2006 @ 5:22 pm

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