After putting up with the decidedly low-end Kodak DC1000 that was our first digital, we decided to upgrade a bit. The Kodak was a very simple point-and-shoot number with a bunch of annoying features, mainly the awful flash.
(Over or underexposed...take your pick). It also had very poor battery life, and a clunky serial-port interface with the computer.
I did a bit of research, and Consumer Reports listed the Canon A75 Powershot as their #3, and nearly 100 bucks less than the # 1, an Olympus.
Had much better battery life than either of the top two, and was on sale at Circuit City to boot.
This is an impressive little device. Not overly tiny, it feels like a camera. 3.2 megapixels, 3X zoom (with 10Xdigital zoom), and more features than you can shake a stick at. I'm familiar with the Canon SLR film cameras, as the department uses one, and the control layout on this is very similar with the little mode wheel on top. You can go with a very reliable point-and-shoot "auto" mode, or be as adjustable as you like.
Even handles Macro pretty well. Flash synch up to 1/500 second, "burst" shooting, movies, etc.
Resolution appears very good indeed. I took a bunch of shots around the university at the medium quality level (gives you something like 100 shots with the 32 meg "card" that comes with the thing) and was able to zoom them up to 200% in the computer before noticing any graininess.
The supplied USB cable transfers images to your computer quickly, or can interface with a lot of the newer printers directly.
The only poor spot is the supplied software. The picture-transfer software is adequate (with XP all you really need is a card-USB interface), but the editing program they give you is downright silly; just 3 sliders for brightness, contrast, and color.
There's also a bunch of silly junk that's supposed to interface with your e-mail; all totally unnecessary. Even simple, free photo-editing programs have more functionality than this.
What with all the Photoshop programs available on FTP.....
Anyway, a very nice little rig for right around 200 bucks.
(Over or underexposed...take your pick). It also had very poor battery life, and a clunky serial-port interface with the computer.
I did a bit of research, and Consumer Reports listed the Canon A75 Powershot as their #3, and nearly 100 bucks less than the # 1, an Olympus.
Had much better battery life than either of the top two, and was on sale at Circuit City to boot.
This is an impressive little device. Not overly tiny, it feels like a camera. 3.2 megapixels, 3X zoom (with 10Xdigital zoom), and more features than you can shake a stick at. I'm familiar with the Canon SLR film cameras, as the department uses one, and the control layout on this is very similar with the little mode wheel on top. You can go with a very reliable point-and-shoot "auto" mode, or be as adjustable as you like.
Even handles Macro pretty well. Flash synch up to 1/500 second, "burst" shooting, movies, etc.
Resolution appears very good indeed. I took a bunch of shots around the university at the medium quality level (gives you something like 100 shots with the 32 meg "card" that comes with the thing) and was able to zoom them up to 200% in the computer before noticing any graininess.
The supplied USB cable transfers images to your computer quickly, or can interface with a lot of the newer printers directly.
The only poor spot is the supplied software. The picture-transfer software is adequate (with XP all you really need is a card-USB interface), but the editing program they give you is downright silly; just 3 sliders for brightness, contrast, and color.
There's also a bunch of silly junk that's supposed to interface with your e-mail; all totally unnecessary. Even simple, free photo-editing programs have more functionality than this.
What with all the Photoshop programs available on FTP.....
Anyway, a very nice little rig for right around 200 bucks.
