A Little Wonder, Hard Working & Hard to Beat

As far as I can see Canon can do no wrong when it comes to easy to use digital cameras & my latest purchase, the A570IS (replacing my worn out Canon A80), is a case in point. Others may have the edge in one or two areas but when it comes down to overall use Canon have it firmly nailed.

First impressions out of the box highlights the size & layout, as digitals get smaller sensible layout of the controls gets more important. Once you pick up the A570IS all the controls you will need simply fall right into place. The shutter release is where you’d expect it, the zoom control is right there around the shutter release & the mode control is where your thumb sits. PERFECT! This should be the Gold Standard for all digital cameras & any that don’t have this layout don’t make it into my list of choices such as some Nikons & Kodaks, which were all good cameras but had the zoom control on the rear panel & useful functions buried in obscure menus. This is a major problem as your thumb now has the zoom function & your thumb SHOULD be providing a stable grip.

The body style is a great help, with a comfortable grip that wraps around the 2 x AA batteries used for power & which also holds the SD Memory card. A Minor niggle is that if you flip the cover open to change memory card you can also drop the batteries, but given the huge size of SD cards around my guess is that the Memory card will stay put. What IS annoying is that there is no indication which way around to put the batteries! It won’t hurt to put them in the wrong way but neither would it hurt for Canon to put some sort of marking to show the right way to do it.

Once charged up with a memory card & batteries the camera springs to life pretty smartly. In fact overall operation gives you a fast & responsive feel. AF is fast, flash cycling is fast & zooming is speedy without being uncontrollably fast.

At 7.1 Megapixels the CCD isn’t the highest resolution, but I print pictures up to 8.5 x 11” without any noticeable loss of quality. Don’t forget a 10 or 12 megapixel camera may be sexier but it will also produce larger file sizes that can fill up your memory card faster.

There’s a satisfying selection of shooting modes, most of which you won’t need, such a Tv (Shutter Speed Priority) or Av (Lens Aperture Priority). Most of the time you’ll shoot pictures in “P” for “Program” were the camera decides on the best combination of shutter & aperture settings, or “Auto”, both of which produce predictably great results. There’s also a Movie mode which is very useful & produces surprisingly good results, not up to the quality from a proper Video camera, but still highly watchable. Note that you can’t zoom when in Movie mode so you have to choose your focal length before you hit the shutter button.

The lens is up to Canon’s usual standards, being sharp & largely free from fringing even at the edges. A healthy aperture range of f2.6 to f5.5 handles most situations, with shutter speeds of between 15s to 1/2000th & a now modest zoom range of 4x (35 – 140mm effective). I don’t recommend the digital zoom feature, quality rapidly falls, camera shake is magnified enormously & so is noise. I rarely use this unless in bright light conditions. There is a removable trim around the lens to allow the use of auxiliary lenses to give greater telephoto or wideangle focal lengths but these attachments are so expensive you probably won’t ever use them.

This was my first camera with Image Stabilization so I was interested to see the results & I wasn’t disappointed. Often this makes the difference between a blurry or clear shot, especially at slower shutter speeds. It has worked flawlessly & now I have it enabled all the time & don’t even think about it.

The flash is small & punchy at close ranges, which can lead to some bleaching out of close up shots. At longer ranges it lacks power, so really it’s only of use between 6 to 25ft in my experience. After that you need some extra illumination which I’ve been able to provide with an external flash on a slave. (There’s no flash sync socket provided).

For the more adventurous there a Macro mode for close up shots & a Manual Macro mode where you can get really close although the focusing is left up to the operator. An exposure compensation button is thoughtfully provided on the back plate giving +/- 2 stops of compensation in the usual 1/3rd stop interval. It’s great to see a digital camera where this is where you want it & not under some obscure menu 3 levels down.

Viewing images is a breeze, just flip the switch on the top right & your into View Mode. The bright, clear 2.5” screen can show images zoomed in, or in page mode to allow easier navigation around your collection. Even with movies there’s no ghosting & the images stay sharp. The sound from the internal “speaker” is tinny but at least you can hear what is being said etc. Playback on a PC is much better & reveals a surprisingly good microphone has been used. One neat feature is the Auto Rotate which means if you view an image & turn the camera on its side it will flip when you get past 45 degrees so the image is always show the right way up on the screen.

Battery life is supposed to be 120 frames but I use rechargeable NiMHs & they go far longer & represent a good investment. I’ve taken as many as 400 frames this way before having to swap them out. However the use of AA sized cells is a definite bonus. When push comes to shove you can get Alkalines almost anywhere if you need them in a hurry, while with cameras that use the “Chewing gum” LiONs or NiMHs sizes you are stuck until you can get home & pop it into a charger. While AAs may make for a slightly bulkier camera body I still prefer them for this point alone.

For the most part you won’t get involved with the menus, but all the usual features are here such as how long it waits until shutting down, the shutter release sound, print options & so on. There’s no tricks or effects though, as to be expected at this price level.

Often ignored with digital cameras is the supplied software “Easy PhotoPrint”. It is pretty basic, you can connect the camera via the supplied USB lead & pull images off. There are no tricks or effects here either, just Select & Print then pick your layout. What I was pleased to find was this software worked flawlessly with my Canon iP6700D Photo Quality Printer which was a great relief.

There are some areas that need to be improved. The overall feel of the camera is somewhat flimsier than expected, but so far it has held up to lots of use. The CCD used to capture images is noisy at anything over 200ASA & this limits its low light use, which is a regular Canon trait. Other manufacturers do better so why can’t Canon? The flash is a bit feeble & it would help if it zoomed with the lens to add some punch at telephoto ranges & allowed it t back off with closer subjects, either that or add a flash sync socket to allow the use of an external flash. I also miss 2 features of my old Canon A80, one was the swing out LCD screen which allowed for great flexibility in camera position when taking a shot. Holding my A80 low was easy as I could flip the LCD screen up & see what I was taking a shot of, but now I have to follow my camera if I want to get low. Also the A80 had 2 modes called “C1” & “C2”, which allowed the setting up of user defined Custom settings. I had C1 set up for Low Light & C2 set up to produce images with very compact file sizes for use in e-mails & web pages. C1 & C2 are missing on the A570IS.

Shooting great pictures with the A570IS is easy & if you want to get more adventurous this camera can still satisfy without knotting your mind into a technological frazz. There are quicker to use cameras with blindingly fast response times, there are higher resolutions to be had, smaller sizes, longer optical zoom ranges & better low light performance, but finding an overall package that is going to please is tricky. Finding it all in a smile inducing $150 package is a definite plus! And here’s the deal, the A570IS does have some slight shortcomings, but the plus points are so many & so overwhelming that you won’t care.