Canon PowerShot A530

I bought my Canon PowerShot A530 in the January sales as my old digital camera had been dropped and broken in the Christmas holidays. I love to take lots of photographs to record everything we do but I am by no means into all the technology. I just wanted something small that would fit easily into my pocket and something that was not too pricey, was extremely easy to use and most importantly took really good photos. My partner did a bit of research ...
...Print and Movie Print with Canon CP and SELPHY Compact Photo Printers. I haven't tried this as I rarely make prints from my photos preferred to buy prints of them off the internet.
*1.8" colour LCD screen with up to 10x playback zoom
Macro button for taking close ups - I've used this a lot very satisfactorily
*Built in flash
*Built in red eye reduction
*Self-timer with 10.2 seconds delay - have had a lot of ... more

I bought my Canon PowerShot A530 in the January sales as my old digital camera had been dropped and broken in the Christmas holidays. I love to take lots of photographs to record everything we do but I am by no means into all the technology. I just wanted something small that would fit easily into my pocket and something that was not too pricey, was extremely easy to use and most importantly took really good photos. My partner did a bit of research for me on the internet to see what was around (he was the one who dropped the old camera!) and he thought this one would probably be the best one for me.

It is small, silver and light-weight (weighing 217g). Dimensions: (WxDxH): 9 cm x 4.3 cm x 6.4 cm. When I saw it in the shop I thought it looked a bit more old fashioned than many of the others in the price range because it wasn't completely flat like them but now I think it is much better as it is easier to hold - only if you are right handed - as your fingers wrap around the bulgy bit that holds the batteries and card and where there is also the picture taking button

It is described as a point-n-shoot camera and that's really what it is as it is so easy to use and you get good results right away. It also has an ISO 800 setting which reduces the effects if you are like me and sometimes shake the camera. It is fast to start up and play back too. When I showed my son (he's a teacher) this new camera I was very pleased to hear that he had done a lot of research on cameras and had also independently bought 6 of these for his department for his students to use.

• 5 mega pixels of resolution
• Retractable 4x optical zoom lens, also 4x digital zoom
• 22 shooting modes from fully automatic to full manual
• 16:9 Widescreen for full-screen viewing on widescreen TVs and computer monitors, producing images and film clips for the widescreen TV or computer monitor
• Pre-programmed creative scene modes which are really good for beginners like me. You can set these by using the dial on the top of the camera and there is a little logo for each mode. Some of them don't look too much like the scene they are depicting but you very soon get used to them. Additionally you can see which mode you are in and change the mode by looking at the LCD screen. You can't do this so easily when it is bright light which is why the dial is also useful. The modes are:
• Auto - when the camera does it all for you. I started on this one but am much more adventurous now!
• P Program - you can use to access advanced exposure compensation features while shooting mostly automatically.
• Manual - lets you set ISO speed, exposure compensation and white balance - I haven't attempted this yet
• Portrait - this concentrates on the person you are photographing and blurs the background
• Landscape - which is very focussed near and distant
• Nightscene - does just what it suggests and is for evening and sunsets
• Stitch assistant - for stitching together shots for panorama pictures
• Movie - for taking short movies with sound - I will comment on this feature separately

• Foliage - for leaves, autumn colours etc
• Snow - so you can avoid the bluish tinge you sometimes get with snow scenes
• Beach - good for taking pictures of people on the beach as it avoids darkening faces
• Fireworks - no explanation needed!
• Indoor - ditto
• Kids and Pets - also good for fast moving objects
• Night snapshot - for brighter backgrounds and subjects lit by flash
• Colour accent - must try this out - you can choose to retain a single colour in your image while other colours turn monochrome
• Colour swap - lets you select a colour and replace it with a colour you specify for special effects … I didn't realise it had these features until I started playing around with the camera to write this review!

• Vivid - for taking vibrant shots with dramatic high-contrast
• Neutral - lets you produce images of subtle, elegant tonality
• Sepia - so you can take old fashioned brown toned photographs
• Black white - which of course, does as it says, and this is really good for photographing text
• Positive Film - haven't tried this but it is supposed to let you combine "Vivid Blue," "Vivid Green" and "Vivid Red" to achieve a positive film effect
• Lighter and Darker skin tone - lets you change the tone of your subject's skin
• Custom Colour - enables you to finely adjust brightness and vividness, and set your preferred balance of blue, green, red and skin colors - I haven't felt the need to try this one

• Print/Share Button which it says is for easy direct printing and downloading, plus ID Photo Print and Movie Print with Canon CP and SELPHY Compact Photo Printers. I haven't tried this as I rarely make prints from my photos preferred to buy prints of them off the internet.
• 1.8" colour LCD screen with up to 10x playback zoom
  Macro button for taking close ups - I've used this a lot very satisfactorily
• Built in flash
• Built in red eye reduction
• Self-timer with 10.2 seconds delay - have had a lot of fun using this feature too!
• Built in microphone enables you to make comments as you take the photos (I think) but I haven't figured out how to do this. I think this is rather more my problem than the cameras as I really hate reading all the instructions
• Burst feature - which enables you to take lots of pictures one after the other in rapid succession. I'm sure it has this feature as I remember the sales assistant spending quite some time to find it and I really must try to work out how to use it as I have enjoyed this feature on my mobile phone

The camera came with a 16mb card which is too small to be much use and I quickly replaced this with a 1gb one which is more than enough for my needs

Movie feature ****************
I am really impressed with this feature but do remember, if it isn't already more than obvious, that I have very little knowledge and experience of cameras. I use the movie feature a lot to record short sequences with sounds and then I use Windows Moviemaker to put together short films combining the movie sequences and still shots. When shooting movies outdoors on windy days the camera picks up all the wind noises over any voices but I have discovered using Moviemaker you can hide these and superimpose a commentary or music. Personally I much prefer these short movies of about 10 minutes duration to the endless videos I have seen made by friends with movie cameras.

We bought my camera in the big French supermarket E. LeClerc in their January sale this year for just under £100 - of course, buying the bigger card put the price up. This was as low as the best price we had found on the internet at that time. Looking on Amazon today it is advertised for £128.65

I would recommend this camera for someone like me who loves to take a lot of photgraphs and movies but who is very much a beginner and who wants something easy to use, not too expensive but also something that produces excellent results and is very much fun to use.  

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