Excellent photos, very versatile camera

The immediate thing you notice with the Canon Powershot A620 is the power bulge with the 4 AA cells. This is going to be either something you like or immensely dislike. Personally I find this very convenient in terms of the shooting grip and a reassuring way of holding the camera between shots (in addition to the strap of course). On the plus side, there is no sign of the batteries giving up and I have been giving them some serious use while getting to grips with the camera. I found a Samsonite Trekking case which fits the camera very nicely and gives a reassuring means of carrying it.

The shooting options on the camera are immense and the matrix at the back of the advanced manual goes on for two pages. All of the priority modes are there together with manual focus and aperture settings etc. In case you wondered apertures at wide are f2.8 to f8 and at telephoto(4x) f4.1 to f8. Speeds are from 15 seconds to 1/2500 and the iso rating runs from 50 to 400.

Now about the results – awesome quality outdoors and brilliant results. Indoors maybe not quite so hot without the flash, although perfectly respectable within the flash ranges. Macro, absolutely brilliant, took some shots I would only have dreamed of before with focus down to 1 cm! Colours appear to be fairly representative and areas where I have suffered with purple fringing are much improved over my previous Kodak 6440. I will place more pictures on www.pcinfo.me.uk/images and maybe put together a webpage at some point. Image sizes are high as you would expect (been using the superfine mode so far) and can be as high as 4.5 MByte.

Start up speed is faster than I am used to and have got some shots I would have missed previously, however missed a couple because I forgot to switch back from review mode before powering down – bit frustrating that.

Display is adequate, small in comparison to much of the competition, but very versatile with being able to angle and tilt. You really do need to look from level or below as it does not have a good viewing angle from above and the illumination LEDs become visible. Being able to tilt the display is a great feature and allows for less straining to see the image. I don’t think it is mega bright and although I have not used it in bright sunlight I would imagine it would only just about be ok.

Display detail is well though out enabling the status to be seen of all the options overlaid on the image. Again some of the images take a bit of getting used to, but once you have remembered them they come fairly naturally.

Flash as I mentioned is adequate, the size is very small, but the illumination is fairly even on the shots I have taken so far.

The zoom lens moves freely and is fairly quiet in its operation, there is a software lock which disables moving through to the software zoom if you wish. The zoom lever works well and controls the mechanism as you would expect. There is an adaptor for additional lenses which is a bayonet type, however, since I have none of these I cannot comment on the facility other than saying it looks to be good. Having 4x zoom is great and with the additional software zoom gives 16x – I took some distant shots of rabbits handheld this way and was surprised at the results.

The camera body is chunky and looks relatively robust although it is made from plastic. As I mentioned I do not like the cover over the USB connector, it is a bendy flexible plastic door and it really lets down the rest of the construction. Battery door has a lock on it which looks substantial enough.

SD memory cards are not going to last too long with 4 MB going on each photo in superfine mode 512MB will only give you around 128 images. I have been using standard speed, however the manual does appear to suggest faster ones may give advantages in speed between photos. The SD door is fine, pity they didn’t manage to copy it for the USB!

The controls are well spaced out and once you have got used to their functions they become intuitive. Quite easy to operate buttons but not a particularly positive feel, however, you can of course see the mode changes.

Panorama mode works well together with the stitch software , one example in my images. Other included viewing software is adequate and seems to work ok , however, will not replace my other photo editing utilities.

Overall I am pleased and the camera has met/exceeded my expectations. Would recommend for someone who is looking between a compact and SLR and is prepared to carry a little more weight and bulk in order to get very good results