Canon PowerShot A460

Canon PowerShot A460

===Basic specs===

Resolution: 5.0 Megapixel

Zoom: Optical-4x, Digital-4x

Shooting Modes: Portrait mode, macro, fireworks, indoor, foliage, beach, kids & pets, snow
Special Effects: Black & White, Sepia, Neutral, Vivid, Custom Effect
White Balance Presets: Fluorescent, cloudy, tungsten light, daylight, fluorescent light
(daylight)

...
.../> Software: Drivers & Utilities, Canon ZoomBrowser EX, Canon ImageBrowser

Weight: 165g

===Intro===

This was my first digital camera, after just a week, I was baffled as to how I ever managed without it. But don't get me wrong; this isn't just a camera for beginners. It could be used for anything from (perhaps) professional landscapes to family snapshots. If you want to know more, please read on!
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Canon PowerShot A460

Basic specs

Resolution: 5.0 Megapixel

Zoom: Optical-4x, Digital-4x

Shooting Modes: Portrait mode, macro, fireworks, indoor, foliage, beach, kids & pets, snow
Special Effects: Black & White, Sepia, Neutral, Vivid, Custom Effect
White Balance Presets: Fluorescent, cloudy, tungsten light, daylight, fluorescent light
(daylight)

Max Shutter Speed: 1/2000 sec
Min Shutter Speed: 15 sec

Flash Modes: Fill-in mode, slow synchro, auto mode, flash OFF mode, red-eye reduction

Additional Features: Audio recording, direct print, auto power save, DPOF support, digital image rotation, PictBridge support, AF lock, 16:9 widescreen mode, safety zoom

Display : 86,000pixels ,LCD display - TFT active matrix - 2" - colour.

Software: Drivers & Utilities, Canon ZoomBrowser EX, Canon ImageBrowser

Weight: 165g

Intro

This was my first digital camera, after just a week, I was baffled as to how I ever managed without it. But don't get me wrong; this isn't just a camera for beginners. It could be used for anything from (perhaps) professional landscapes to family snapshots. If you want to know more, please read on!

Design

The A460 is a truly beautiful camera, it's one of the most elegant I've ever seen. It is a beautiful silver colour and its whole form is smooth and pleasant to hold. It's easy to keep an easy firm grip with one hand, keeping the camera steady whilst taking the picture. The back isn't full of overly complicated buttons and switches for all different things, there are just four buttons and an arrow pad. Simplicity.

Functions

There are 3 different modes for taking pictures. All of them essentially do the same thing except some have more functions for more experienced photographers. This again, another way of making the camera simple to use.

The camera's auto focus and auto-exposure functions are quick responding and accurate. It can operate well in both light and dark environments, although if the two 'extremes' are mixed in a single shot it can struggle to bring out some detail.

4x optical zoom (zoom retaining 5mpx resolution) combined with the digital zoom means you can achieve good shots at a 16x zoom.

The LCD display at 86,000 pixels is competent, and excellent for its purpose. By using your naked eye and looking through the viewfinder, its actually hard to imagine the subject will be as detailed as the picture actually comes out as.

There are different flash functions, the flash being very good indeed, but it proves a huge drain on the batteries, something that, even without a flash, drains very quickly. The batteries required are 2 AA's, I'd recommend rechargeable certainly otherwise you could find it quite costly to buy batteries to even take on holiday.

There is a choice of 9 basic exposure levels, with a manually adjustable setting too. With this wide choice, and a combination of other functions, you really can be quite creative in the mood you wish to convey in your photograph. There are 5 ISO settings, colour, special effects and environment settings listed in specs. You can also change levels of saturation, contrast and sharpness.

There is a distant setting, macro (close ups), with a focus range up to 50cm, and a super-macro setting, fantastic for even 'closer-ups'. With all of this you can take in focus pretty much whatever you want.

There are around 6 photo size settings. And drive mode settings (continuous shooting). I wouldn't particularly recommend drive mode however, unless it is mounted on a tripod or some still surface as it doesn't have time to auto-focus; flash cannot be combined with drive mode. Drive mode can be combined with a timer. The timer can be set to anything from 1-30 seconds, and it lets you know with beeps when the picture is about to be taken as you'd expect.

A very important function that's included, is of course the movie mode. High quality videos of length up to 60mins can be recorded, viewed and downloaded. I haven't really got much of a use for it, but it's great to be able to have it handy whenever a moment arises. Movies and photos can also be viewed on a TV via the AV out connection. I have to say sound on those movie clips is satisfactory but not brilliant.

Software

A rather large aspect of the brilliance of the A460, is down to the software that comes with it. I've not experienced all of it, such as photostitch (seamlessly helps you edit and put together different photos) but I have used the zoombrowser a lot. It's very easy to use, and you can get fantastic results from it. Its like windows journal viewer but with more features.

There are many ways to view and compare your photos on your computer. It's easy to navigate and can zoom in to a huge amount. You can view and edit any image on your computer using the file navigator. You could even view on one screen every single image at once. There are also different ways to classify and sort them.

The main genius of this programme however, lies in its editing capability. You could easily get the same results here as by using the 'basic' image editing functions on Photoshop. Crop, red-eye, sharpness, RBG colour adjustment, levels, lighting, auto edit, contrast, tone, it's all there, and more. There are also different easy printing settings.

Downloading from the camera couldn't be easier. Simply connect USB cord to camera, choose which way you would like to upload them (can do it from camera) select the photos you which to download, click the big button, wait a few moments and they're there, ready to do with them as you will. While this is very 'follow the instructions on screen'y, down to earth users who simply would like to access the camera like a usb stick will take little while to get used to the software.

User friendliness

Now I never really read the instructions that came with it, I found them pretty hard to read, but that might have just been my impatience. So I just picked up the camera and within 5 seconds I was able to take a picture, after that it just got better. Like I said earlier, there aren't many buttons, and each one has simple functions that are indicated; they're positioned for easy fingertip use. The camera acts as a great companion to the user. It's small and light, easy to use and so is great to bring wherever you go. You'll enjoy using it. There isn't really much to more to say here, except, yes, it is very user friendly.

Price/value

You could get an analogue for the price asked here. Very reasonable indeed for everything that it can achieve. It will bring amateur photographers happiness and satisfaction for years, and families, well, a simple but great camera for years. Very good value, even after you add on the cost of all those batteries and a memory card (a memory card is provided but it wont get you very far).

Quality (pictures & build)

Well I can't say a huge amount about the build quality, except that I dropped it once and it was fine. I don't have a single doubt that it will last me a long time. Also, it comes with a wrist band/string thing that will stop you dropping it and doesn't look or feel bad.

Picture quality? Very good indeed. I'm no photographer, but here is a sample of the shots I've taken.

http://the-wandering-ranger.deviantart.com/gallery/#Photography

Thanks for reading

Simon Oates/Ugluk1000 

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