A Big Little Digital Camera

This camera is ideal for both the occasional point and shoot vacationer and the budding photographer. I've been thrilled with the quality of my photographs, whether they were of my friends at Mardi Gras or difficult close up shots of moving animals in low light. And, given that I have moderate experience as a 35mm photographer, I am even more impressed with the capabilities of this camera, given it's size, which is that of a pack of smokes.

Navigation is clear and user friendly, using icons that are intuitively decipherable. For example, to change the camera's settings for shooting subjects close up or far away, a flower and a mountain range are displayed respectively. Choosing any of the camera's extensive shooting options is this easy, regardless of how advanced the option.

The shooting options of this camera are almost limitless. Adjustments in shutter speed (time the camera takes to capture the image by leaving the shutter open, e.g. fast for moving targets and very slow for pictures taken at night) may be made manually for the experienced photographer, or by icon for the typical user. While the camera's "Auto" setting will usually produce decent results in a typical environment, more specific settings are available for optimal pictures in various situations. For instance, a "Kids and Pets" setting uses a quick shutter speed for moving targets. I've found this setting to be invaluable in many situations, including photographing my cats and at parades or other public events, where subjects were constantly in motion. I have yet to experience a blurry shot using this setting. Another option useful to capturing moving targets is the "Continuous Shooting" setting, which allows you to take one photo after another in rapid succession as long as the shutter button remains pressed down. The "Night Snapshot" setting has also proved to be a useful tool. In my prior experience, night settings on digital cameras have simply illuminated every dark spot in the frame, resulting in grainy photographs that lack contrast and rich shadows. The "Night Snapshot" setting on this camera has not so sacrificed image quality. However, in very low light a tripod would still be required to avoid a blurry image, unless your hands are supernaturally steady. These options are the ones I've found useful for my photographic needs, but the camera has many additional settings much like those of a manual 35mm.

Perhaps the one glaring way in which this camera differs from a manual 35mm is the lack of a manual aperture (changes focus for everything in the frame or on just one particular subject)setting. While this may be a problem for the advanced photographer, the typical user or the budding photographer would not feel any loss. In lieu of a manual aperture, the camera's Auto Focus feature can be turned off, which enables you to obtain greater focus in a particular area of the frame that you select before snapping the picture. There's more to it than that, but to avoid belaboring the camera's manual, I'll say that it's easy to do. Further in terms of focus, the camera's "Digital Macro" setting allows you to take close up pictures of objects within an inch or so. This feature is fantastic and I've used it to take very interesting portraits of sections of the face. To again draw a comparison between this tiny digital camera and a large, bulky 35mm, a lens roughly the length of the Eiffel Tower would be required to take such a close up shot with the 35mm.

I've only experienced two problems with this camera. First, short battery life. I would certainly recommend purchasing an additional battery with this camera, however there is a counterintuitive trick to lengthen a session of battery life: don't turn the camera off when you've stopped shooting. I've found that turning the camera on and off repeatedly accelerates the deterioration of battery power, while if the camera is simply left on in shooting mode, the lens will retract and the camera will go into a sleep mode. As soon as you press any of the buttons to resume shooting, the camera will be ready to go. Second, the flash of the camera has a small spatial range. When shooting photos of items for sale on Ebay using the flash, I noticed an orb effect, where the circle of flash ends abruptly. So, if you must use the flash, keep it on close up subjects.

While there are many additional aspects of this camera I've not touched upon in this review, I've highlighted the big pros and cons from the perspective of my experiences. I would certainly recommend this camera to the average consumer and, as I said before, I am thrilled with it overall.