I have wanted a Canon Digital Rebel for a long time. I already have a Canon Rebel and an Olympus digital camera. But the Rebel takes film, and the Olympus is just old. I’ve had it for 3 or 4 years.
Since Julia was born, Sharon and I have been taking photographs like mad. The Olympus was too slow, ate batteries like candy, and only took mediocre pictures. The Rebel took much better pictures, but I paid for every pictures I took. We needed a new camera.
I tried to convince myself that I needed a Digital Rebel. The PMA, a huge photography trade show, was to be held at the end of February. I thought that a successor to the Digital Rebel XT would be announced, and I could get the XT on the cheap. Canon had other ideas, and announced a higher end model. I almost gt the Digital Rebel anyway.
I found the Canon Powershot A700 instead. It was only introduced in February, so I couldn’t find any reviews on it. So I took a chance on it anyway. I’m glad I did.
Pros:
- Totally manual control – 1/2000″ to 15″, f/2.8-8.0, ISO 80-800, and manual focus
- Huge LCD screen
- Movie mode – with sound! It will do 640×480 at 30fps until you fill out the memory card
- Good image sensor
- 6x optical zoom (like 35-210mm)
- Picture burst mode – it will take about 2 pictures a second for a while. I’ve taken 60-70 in a single burst before I stopped.
Cons:
- Still a delay between pressing shutter and taking picture
- 16MB SD card included – give me a break, that’s like 6 pictures at the highest settings
- Autofocus could be better
So there you have it. For $300, you can get your hand on a very nice point and shoot digital camera with full manual control.
[tags]Canon Powershot A700, digital camera, review[/tags]
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6 replies on “My Canon Powershot A700 Review”
have you tried out the movie mode? i read some reviews of canon’s older digital elphs, and they said there was a hiss in the sound. they fixed it with the elph sd550, so i imagine it wouldn’t have it on this one. just curious though.
oh, and by the way – the most recent pictures of julia are great. must be the camera. 😉
We haven’t heard a hiss in the movie mode, just Julia snorting and grunting. I really like this picture of Julia. I like this one too.
i love both of those too. the first one is currently my desktop, and gets lots of “oooo” “awwww” and “oh my god” (as in, oh my god, that’s so cute). i also really like the black and white one where she’s sort of looking to the side – i have that one printed and framed.
The first one is my desktop too. That’s one of my favorites so far.
nice camera…and yeah my Canon came with 16MB…who in their right mind takes 5 or 6 pictures. Well, unless you like carrying a laptop along with your camera….
But I think Canon has better cameras in general…a lot of people i know have one and it takes great pictures but they all have that slight delay in taking pictures which get quite annoying after a long night on the town 🙂