Excellent Digital Camera and Price

The Canon PowerShot A640 10 mega pixel digital camera may be the best choice in its class. For the price, durability, ease of use and most importantly quality of the pictures. This camera is truly hard to beat.

There are other more technically knowledgeable reviews on this camera that I highly recommend you read. They influenced me greatly. For my review I will focus on the layman’s experience out of the box and into use.

Right out of the box I was able to insert the memory card and batteries in less than 1 minute. The start up was only seconds and my first picture taken within 3 minutes of opening the package. This says a lot about the complexity of the camera. There is none.

The dial control on the top of the camera controls what mode your shooting in. The labels are clearly marked and most of the icons and abbreviations are easy to understand without having to look them up in the manual. I was also happy to find that the dial had a full 360 degree turning radius. That is there is no point where the dial stops and you have to reverse the direction your turning. This makes it much easier to dial in your desired mode when using only one hand. The dial itself has very defined clicks from mode to mode and feels tight and sturdy without being too stiff to turn with just your thumb. Its location is excellent for the right hander operating the camera with only one hand.

The zoom switch follows the clearly marked easy to understand icons format of the mode dial. Its position around the shutter button is convenient and unobtrusive. It feels a bit loose. Maybe the flimsiest thing on the camera. That being said its not bad enough that I would want this observation to hold much weight against the camera. Although its the only part of the camera that does not have the same sturdy feel of the rest of the camera it does not feel as if its about to break or fall off, just a little loose.

The shutter button is again sturdy and has a good feel. The first press to bring the camera into focus is soft to the touch and requires very little pressure. Nice if you have to hold it down for an extended period of time waiting for just the right moment. The final push to take the picture is smooth and requires only slightly more pressure. Again when going for the one handed shot this smooth push helps to prevent jerking the camera at the moment you take the picture.

The On/Off button is well positioned. This may seem like an inconsequential item but in the past I have had cameras that required you to use two hands to turn them on. One to hold the camera and one to open a front cover. For the spontaneous quick shot this often made me miss the moment. The A640 has the on off button right at the top and again one hand operation is easy and quick. From the moment you press the button to the moment the camera is ready to take a picture with flash is about 1.5 seconds. I have never had that kind of response from a digital camera before.

On the back of the camera is the view panel. This swings out easily and rotates into many positions for viewing the shot no matter where the camera is in relation to you. When not in use the view finder folds into the camera with the screen facing into the body protecting the large LCD but can be swung around for viewing and dock back into the body. The construction of the rotating hinge and pivot point is very sturdy. It clicks/locks at the various 90 degree points but is fully functional at any position you place it at and seems to stay put even when moving the camera around.

The LCD itself was one of the best surprises. Its large 2.5 inch screen is very bright and super clear. The LCD image, even in low light, is sharp and clear allowing you to see the detail in your subject before taking the shot. This is especially noticeable and useful when in macro mode and finding your sharpest focus. Something I do often. In lighting too low to see clearly on the LCD pressing the shutter button down about half way will bring up a light source from the front of the camera to illuminate your subject very well. (IR maybe?) I took the camera to my bathroom (no windows), closed the door and in total darkness took a picture of my sink. Stupid shot I know but it was a test only. The light source lit up the subject well and the LCD was able to give me a clear view of the sink. The remarkable factor was the quality of the picture it took but I will detail the great picture quality in a moment.

The controls on the back of the camera are again clearly labeled and simple to use. I wont go into detail about the numerous functions they perform, leaving that to the more technically oriented reviews. Simply, they are once again sturdy with a good crisp feel without being stiff or hard to access. They are well spaced so even those with big fingers should be able to operate them with no cross button presses. I especially liked the simple and easy to operate switch on the back that takes the camera from shooting to viewing mode quickly. It’s the stiffest of all the controls and for good reason. It would not do to have the camera accidentally switch off shooting mode at just the wrong moment. Even so its positioning is such that this would be unlikely while holding the camera normally in the right hand.

Holding the camera is quite natural. As I have mentioned (maybe harped on) one handed operation is easy and comfortable. Two handed is equally natural. All the controls are located in excellent positions for the right hand operation and using just the right hand will likely be the predominant way you will feel the need to operate this camera. For those unsteady moments when two handed operation is needed the left hand slips onto the camera naturally without obstructing anything. I actually found it difficult to hold the camera with my finger over the flash. I simply needed to hold the camera under the flash because of the design of the camera body. No more blocked flash photos for me or blurry shots of my thumb.

The camera is noticeably weighty. This may be a drawback for the pocket camera people. I feel the weight helps give the camera stability. Along with that is the size. It’s a bit bulkier than some of the other small cameras I looked at. Again this could be an issue for those looking for something to just through in the pocket and forget about. It will fit in most coat pockets but the weight and size wont let you forget its there. If this is an issue for you I suggest heading to a store and trying out the weight and feel before buying. Heck stuff it in your pocket just to see if your going to be OK with it. You may want to let the store clerk know what your doing first, least you end up in the security office.

Taking a picture. Seriously I cant stress enough how great the photos with this camera are. I could end this review now by simply saying “WOW!” but then what sort of review would that be?

Most of us are going to be shooting in “Auto” mode so I will concentrate on that again leaving the details of the various manual functions to those who understand f-stops and white balance better than I. I do know that the camera will allow full manual control over just about any photography function I have ever heard of and then some. So if you’re into the manual experience this may just be the camera for you. Take a look at some of the other reviews by real photographers for the details on that.

Auto mode has a lot more versatility than one might think. There is of course the usual red eye reduction for the flash and macro functions we have come to expect in a good camera but this camera has so much more for the novice to expert photographer alike.
Picture size and quality are easily adjusted on a photo by photo basis but for the most part I see no reason not to leave it on the super fine and largest picture size. On my 512 meg memory card I can hold approximately 150 to 200 photos at the max settings. But if your looking to conserve memory or have a special need then there are 3 Compression Mode settings and 5 Image Resolution settings. The specifics of each are listed in the “details” for this camera here on epinions, so I wont repeat them here. Along with the expected Image Resolution settings are two unexpected ones. A wide angle mode that works on the LCD much like a letterbox movie does on your standard TV and a post card size. Although Im not really sure what I would use a post card size for. But maybe you can think of a reason to have that specific setting on a camera. The wide angle mode does give a bit more scope to your shots and will probably be best suited to grand nature scenes.

Auto mode shoots, as expected, pretty much point and shoot. The camera very quickly focuses and takes a picture. There is almost no lag time between shots either. Taking a picture puts an image of the shot you just took on the LCD for about 2 seconds. And then within 3 seconds of taking the last picture the camera is ready to go again. This includes the flash. In fact I see almost no lag time from picture to picture.

Shutter lag has always been an issue on my older digital cameras. Often being as much as 2 seconds from the time I press the shutter button down to the time the picture is actually taken. This can cause the shot to be ruined if the camera is moved before the picture is taken or if the subject moves. The A640 has absolutely no noticeable shutter lag at all. Taking the action shot will be easy now. No more missed moments because the camera lagged long enough for the fast moving subject to leave the frame. I really tried to time how long it took from pressing the shutter button down to the picture being taken but it was too quick to calculate. A rough guess would be a 16th or even 32nd of a second. Very fast in my opinion.

The pictures themselves are astounding. Downloading them from the camera to the computer was fast on the USB 2 cable. About 2 to 3 seconds each for the highest resolution photos. Once brought up on the computer you can really see the true quality of this camera. Colors are bright and true to life. Reds blues and greens are well defined against each other with no noticeable bleed. Our house is a bright red with high contrasting white molding and rich coffee wood doors. The pictures of the room at various light levels including using the flash came out so crisp and focused that I quickly realized why this camera has so small a zoom function.

A photo of the wood door taken from about 17 feet away was so detailed that I could zoom in on my computer and see the fine grain of the wood. Equally a picture from about 8 feet away of our mannequin, don’t ask, allowed me to zoom in and count the eyelashes on her eyes. Put simply in most cases you will be able to take a full shot and then zoom in on a particular section quite a lot when you upload the picture to your computer. The camera does a nice job of stabilizing the shot itself even in zoom mode and the quality of the pictures taken will allow you to zoom even further in your favorite photo editor.

Low light photos without the flash come out much cleaner than expected but are not going to have the high contrast and clean edges. With the flash we have been able to get crisp clear pictures at about 15 feet. After 15 feet the flash begins to loose some of its effectiveness. This is more noticeable when using the red eye reduction mode on the flash for some reason. We took several group shots indoors at night with only dim lighting in the room. All but the ones taken with no flash at all came out extremely clear. Skin tones were the biggest surprise. Each of the subjects had decidedly different skin tones and the camera rendered near perfect results for each of us from the darkest to the palest. There was no washout on those with white skin and no loss of contrast on those with dark skin.

Even more astonishing was the macro focus. We take pictures of jewelry for our business and had a great deal of trouble in the past. The A640 was easy to focus in macro mode and rendered pictures so clear you could read the 24K on the clasp when you zoomed in on the picture in Photoshop. No camera I have ever had standard or digital rendered this much detail before. If taking macro close ups is something you do often I recommend you look into the A640 right away.

There are some features we have not yet really played with like the very interesting panorama mode where the camera splits the LCD display to aid in lining up several photos to create one long panoramic shot. The one test we did had limited success. The software program provided with the camera lines up and “stitches” the photos together. But although it looked very clean in the preview the final result had definite un-aligned seams in some spots. In defense of the panorama function and the software I neither took the time to manually line anything up nor did I read the instructions. I suspect that the real issue was user error.

There is also the video function but again I have not really explored this much. I do look forward to trying some of the effects it claims to be able to do. Such as shooting a black and white video with only a pre-selected color remaining in the video. At least from what I have read this would allow you to select, for instance, just the blue of the subjects shirt and record a video. The end result should be that all of the video was in black and white with just the subjects shirt retaining its blue color. In practice I just don’t know how well this will work.


Summing up. I had a very hard time finding anything I did not like about this camera and there is a whole lot to love about it. Although it may not suit the weekender wanting a very small pocket camera or the high end professional photographer the versatility of this camera will cover the very large spectrum in between. Near perfect color matches, super high resolution, total ease of use and well thought out layout and labeling of the controls is combined in a good size and durable sturdy package. All this makes this camera one of the best purchases I have made in a long time.


10-26-07 – Update on the Canon A640 Digital Camera
Just three updates as I have had a chance to really settle in with the camera.
If any of these functions interest you please read on.

1. Construction/Durability
2. Panoramic function
3. Video functions

First nothing above has changed. I still love this camera and have used (and abused) it a lot over the last 10 months or so. The picture quality is exemplary. Ease of use is unsurpassed. And most of all the durability is astounding. So lets start with the update on that and a bit more on my abuse of this camera.

I have dropped it. Several times. On grass. In mud. In a puddle. And even on the asphalt. Only the asphalt did any damage and that was only a cosmetic scratch to the casing. Once I even knocked over the tripod it was mounted to and it hit the carpeted floor with a decided thump. No damage to the camera. This thing takes a beating.

And getting wet is not an issue either. Its been face down in a 1 inch deep puddle with nothing more than a wipe of the lens required after. Its been totally covered in wet mud requiring a good cleaning with a paper towel and nothing more. Worst of all it took a direct hit from a faulty coffee mug with no damage what so ever. Yes, you heard right a faulty coffee mug. While approaching the computer first thing in the morning, coffee in hand, the mug handle just gave out. The full cup of coffee (black) went end over and landed directly on top of the Canon A640. It was drenched and took a good hit from the cup to boot. I dried it out with a paper towel and cleaned up the lens and it is back to normal with no issues at all. Thank you Canon for thinking about those cheap novelty coffee cups when you put this camera together.

I have toyed around with that panorama function the A640 offers up. I have to admit from the start that I really have no need for this and consequently have not really taken any special care in trying to get it to work. Having said that I just cant get it sorted out. I mounted the camera to the tripod. (recommended in the manual) then took the first shot. Lined up the next shot in the viewfinder easily enough and took the next. Repeat. But when I brought the pictures into the special editing software to “stitch” them together it all fell apart. The final product is more of a grade school collage than a smooth panorama of your scene. Maybe with a lot more time spent in the manual lining up of the pictures and care taken in the original shooting of the pictures you could get it all right but unless you have a real need for this function I don’t see it being worth the hours you would have to spend. So in the end I simply have forgotten its there. With so many other plusses behind the A640 its not really a downer at all.

On to the video. I have used this so much that my Digital video camera I used to use for all my video projects has become a virtual dust collector. The video is fantastic. See below for an example of the video quality I have taken.
Low lighting the video is grainy as expected but not so much as to ruin the shot. Indoors with only one incandescent light above my subject I got a very good image and was able to use 80% of the footage taken. With several lights turned on the image was on par with my far more expensive digital video camera. (Canon DC50) But its a lot easer to use and the batteries last a great deal longer. Color tones are spot on. Horizontal lines do sometimes get a bit of a stair effect but it is not very noticeable until the image is brought up on a 32” TV screen. The 21” TV I can hardly see them at all.

Outside in daylight I see great colors and no degrading of the image. Going from shadows to bright light does cause some white balance issues (sort of a white out on the screen) but the auto white balance catches up within a second or so and the image returns to normal. This could cause some issues and my DC50 does not have this issue under normal circumstances so in some applications you may want to investigate a different video option. Filming sporting events is one where this may be an issue as the action passes from the bright sunlight into a dark shadowed area and back again. You may miss a moment of action. Otherwise I have seen no times where the video function failed to work well or great.

The black and white mode with one color selected to remain had my interest and I have played around with it some. Thing is that it only really works if the color you select to remain is drastically in contrast to all the other colors in the shot. For instance using it in my house and selecting the red of our walls as the remaining color works well right up until you get our dark orange blanket into the shot. Then parts of the blanket start showing up in color. Its not a good look because most of it is in black and white with weird streaks of orange throughout it. Its reminiscent of the early chroma key issues if your familiar with them. If not then just think spilling colored liquid in a black and white stream. I did get it to work well with a bright blue tie on a black suit and white shirt but the end result was not much of a change from the real thing. So in the end its another feature I just ignore.

Using the video with my 3 500W video lights is the best. I get a close to professional image from them with little fuss or set up required. Most people don’t have these blinding lights laying around and those who do probably don’t use them with a pocket camera so I wont go into it. But the quality was very close to what I get with a $800 semi-pro digital camera.

I have a video here that showcases the quality well. Its of my dog and begins with a very low light shot of her in the crate then gives outdoor daylight shots and indoor incandescent lighting shots as well as some black and white shots using that feature on the camera. The music is an Irish punk band so those with sensitive ears may wish to turn down or off the volume. It is a 19 meg file so be prepared for a big download. I have lower resolution versions but they degrade the images with compression so I don’t feel they reflect the cameras quality well.
The video can be found here:
http://therustybrain.com/lilly/vids/EveryDogHasHerDay_RE01.wmv
Hi-rez (19 megs WMV)