Canon PowerShot A630 8MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Zoom
by Canon
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Canon PowerShot A630 8MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Zoom
Customer Review: Extreme value for the money
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this Canon A630 to back up my Canon Rebel XT dSLR - both are 8 Mpixel. The A630 was intended for situations that didn't require the dSLR attributes - low light, lens interchangeability, bulkiness,and most importantly: the rapid shot-to-shot capability.
The Canon A630 is an excellent point-and-show. The image quality is nearly identical to my Rebel XT (except for low light situations and flash recovery speed).
I had to keep reminding myself this is NOT a Rebel XT (in size, speed, price, bulk, and low light situations). It is a $299 vs. $899 list camera for TOTALLY different purposes.
The swiveling lens is great for off-angle shots (e.g. over head, around corner in tight situation like an aircraft carrier deck, etc.). The 4X zoom is nice; I like 12X, but 4X is perfect for most folks.
The movie mode (640x480 at 30 fps) is very nice too - it still have some artifacts compared to a true video camera, but adequate quality for short clips. I used it for New Year's fireworks in Oahu, Hawaii and the video is pretty good with some artifacts in the dark sky areas. It beats having to carry two cameras.
The menus are very handy - selecting BW or Sepia instantly changes the view finder to show exactly how it looks.
Use of anything beyond ISO 80 is recommended only as last resort. The image noise levels are noticeable and at 400 and beyond, I consider it very bad. If you need the shot, use it, but don't expect good image quality.
I also bought the DC8 underwater housing for snorkeling in Oahu's Hanauma Bay - it allows total control of the camera from power on to ALL features and modes. The pictures I took were fantastic. It would be nice to get an underwater housing for the Rebel XT, but at $900 vs. $199 for the DC8 housing, the A630/DC8 combination is an excellent value with great underwater capability. The flash seemed to work very well underwater (unlike my Pentax Optio s4i - too much debris reflected back into the lens assembly with weird flares). The A630/DC8 underwater performance was beyond my expectations.
Make sure to switch to 'fish' mode to compensate for blueness of underwater.
The 4xAA battery capability is compatible with my battery stash. The SD cards need to be selected carefully. An 8 Mpixel camera can comfortably use a 2GB SD card. However, if you get a 4 or 8 GB card, you MUST get an SD HC-compliant card - the non-SD HC cards do NOT work. I bought/returned a Pretec 4 GB SD card - it was not SD HC-compliant and simply did not work. Canon's website says the A630/A640 are SD HC-compliant and the cards are available, but rather expensive. I made do with 2x2GB cards, but that may be a limitation underwater (as you can't easily change cards on the beach without getting sand/water in the camera). My snorkel outing did just fine with 2 GB card for 2 hours of snorkeling.
Highly recommended. If you like to crop your pictures, I assume the A640 (10 Mpixel) may be better, but the street price is about $100 more. It isn't worth it if you simply 'point-and-shoot' with zero post-processing.
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Customer Review: Great - Even for a first-timer!
Summary: 5 Stars
Aye, this camera is great. I suppose I might be biased, this being my first digital, but I have used cameras borrowed from pals in the recent past, and didn't particularly enjoy them (which is why I wasn't too interested in a digi before).
Quick startup is a big bonus. On my trip earlier this year, I missed many opportunities for good photos with my pal's HP camera, as it took a few seconds to boot, and seconds between photos. The only video I took had to be tossed due to the 15fps blurry quality (and he had no memory card). The digital zoom was horrible, and indoors photos were really crappy - especially at night.
The 30fps movie mode in the A630 is wonderful for a camera of this price - I never use the 15fps mode at all - it's blurry and the picture is 'jumpy,' although if it's done outdoors with good ambient lighting, it seems to work a bit better. I quickly learned to navigate the settings, being a complete novice, but I still need to check the manual on a couple of items that I have no idea about.
Even though it won't fit in my pocket and is heavier than many, the battery life is great. I have the camera over a month now, have taken video, stills with and without flash, deleted and re-shot stuff, and still have not changed the original batteries. If this were my pal's camera, I would have changed batteries after about 8 or so shots. Serious.
I bought a 2GB SD card for it, along with rechargeables and a charger. The only off-key thing I noticed so far is that the images can get pretty grainy on night-time zoomed indoor shots where incandescent (normal) light bulbs are used. As one other reviewer said, I don't know if I have to tinker with the settings to fix this, but that's the only issue I have had.
So basically these things do it for me with this camera:
- Excellent battery life - AA size is easy to get and keep for emergencies
- Excellent video capture with sound
- Quick boot and inter-shot response
- Excellent image quality with little or no blur
- Nice features such as color swap and pre-sets for common situations, apart from manual settings for more advanced users.
- Foldable vari-angle LCD is very very useful - the screen won't get damaged once it's folded in - unlike those with the screen showing at the back. This is great for evaluating your shots, and the quality is pretty good for a small screen.
- Image quality settings allow for maximized space utilization on you SD. (GET a 1-Gig or larger card!)
Drawbacks:
- Some grainy zoomed indoor shots (moreso in nighttime video capture)
- Larger than expected
- Haven't been able to find the correct carrying case up to December 2006! What?!
- Causes me to waste time instead of preparing for my exams! :)
Overall, an easy-to-use, excellent camera, straight out of the box. Would recommend it (and already did - 3 of my coworkers are ordering it, so Canon please organize my cut).
ML.
Customer Review: WOW!
Summary: 5 Stars
My previous camera was a Samsung digimax--about 4MP, no optical zoom. It just stopped turning on one day(I had not dropped it or damaged it--just stopped). It's apparently a common problem with Samsung.
This camera is amazing. It takes fantastic pictures. It took a picture of my engagement ring perfectly--I will upload a photo if Amazon lets me. Most cameras cannot focus that closely, and the 1 cm(or something like that) distance was what made me splurge for this over the 5MP Canon. The camera has a function so that it can take panoramic pictures(it holds part of the previous picture on screen so you can line it up), it takes large video for a camera, you can set it to turn everything into black and white except for one color--and can even make said color(say, blue) turn into, red, or any other color you like. It takes pictures fairly quickly even when using the flash. I'm impressed with the battery life. I know I've taken well over 100 photos and several videos, and I haven't had to recharge yet(I picked a camera that used AA's so that I could keep a set handy if I was at a wedding or camping and didn't have the time or place to wait for a specialty battery to recharge).
One gripe is that it isn't small enough--I had one of those little cameras before, and I always always got my finger in the shot. This camera is big enough to hold. It's not "cute" and it won't fit in your pocket, but it's got too many features to do that.
My only problem is that I get the "shake" warning a lot, nearly all the time if I turn the flash off(which is my own fault).
I am very impressed with this camera. Something that I didn't know until I bought this, but I believe that I saw in the manual that you can replace the lenses and attach a large flash to it. For me, this is the perfect camera for anyone who wants to work his way into serious photography, or have that option. I think that 8MP is a great size--not many people will ever need to take more than an 8x10. If you want bigger than that, might as well pay a professional. And the camera has a speaker built in. Rather wasteful on space, but it is nice to play back movies with sound. And the greatest novelty of all--you can buy a waterproof case if you want to take it to the beach or in the pool. How sweet is that?
Customer Review: Yeah, Baby!
Summary: 5 Stars
I spent many weeks trying decide which camera to buy. I can't do anything impulsively. Finally I was deciding between the nikon s10 and canon a630. i was kind of worried about 4X zoom Vs 10X. After much anguish i picked the a630. it is awesome. the 4X zoom is fine with 8mp, i can use digital zoom(ie crop out part of the picture)and the quality is still incredible. It has all kinds of great extras, but i am just going to focus on the important stuff: quick response, a screen and viewfinder, manual mode, video, powerful flash, variable shutter speed. What's best though is the articulated LCD.
At first I thought it was unnecessary that it could swivel and rotate 360 degrees but it is great. While the s10's screen can rotate only vertically in order to take high or low horizontally-oriented shots with ease, it cannot rotate horizontally to easily take vertically oriented shots like the a630. the screen is so great at concerts especially. i can hold it above my head (and the crowd) in the vertical or horizontal position and just point the screen towards me.
Also, i like that it takes 4 AAs so i can just use regular batteries if my rechargables ever run out. i got the Eneloop batteries and so far they are awesome. i got the kingston ultimate 2gb card as well. These help my camera to operate quickly in continuous shooting (burst) mode. I can also adjust the size and resolution to shoot faster. the options available are abundant. i can turn off the sound and adjust anything i want.
I have taken some sweet concert shots with slow shutter speed and also some beautiful shots of flowers in macro mode.
the only things i dislike are: (1) i cant shoot with inverted colors; i would have to invert them after on my computer. (doesnt matter, just would be more fun) (2) There is no dedicated sports mode. I can easily go to manual or shutter speed mode to pick a fast speed, but i just wish it would do this stuff for me. i think this is so i can change other settings as well(ie. shoot in snow mode with fast shutter).
I definitely am pleased with my choice.
Customer Review: Very Capable Camera
Summary: 5 Stars
The first digicam I got (another brand) was very disappointing for my purposes, the A630 is a major improvement. Autofocus works very well in low light. The LCD continues to work in dim light also instead of going blank. Battery life is very good using 2000MAH AA rechargeables. The tilt/swivel LCD display is very handy when its not possible to get your head behind the camera, such as documenting wiring inside an equipment rack or taking shots from ground level. There is a programmable self-timer mode which I have found to be useful. I use the optical viewfinder often in bright sunlight when the LCD is difficult to see, many other models don't have this. The A630 is capable of very good resolution, I have used it for photographing some intricate mechanisms and circuit boards and the detail in the pictures has brought favorable comments. The auto white balance works well in most situations including dimmed incandescent light. Aperture priority mode is great for documentation shots where you need to maximize depth of field, many similar cameras don't have this mode. Outdoors the A630 reproduces blue sky and clouds beautifully without using any lens filters. I have not used the movie mode so cannot comment on that.
The pictures are a bit noisy at ISO 400 and above if enlarged although still good "snapshot" quality. In very dim light (without flash) its necessary to use high ISO and accept a little noise or stabilize the camera and use a slow shutter. The shiny camera case can be rather slippery to hold, I put a strip of cloth tape on it for a big improvement. The computer software provided has limited editing features, I use an old copy of Paint Shop Pro if significant editing 1s needed.
Bottom line: I am very happy with this camera so far, I have been able to get a good picture in just about any situation. It has many useful features the average "point & shoot" does not which makes it a practical tool for work as well as pleasure photography.