The Canon A530 is an amazing camera for the price or anyone on a slightly tighter budget. The first thing that surprised me about it was how small it was; at only 3.5 inches wide and 2.5 inches high, it fits easily into your pocket, and serves well as a travel companion.Pros:
Amazing image quality for a camera in this price range
Excellent clarity in macro mode
ISO 800 is useful to have when taking night shots without a tripod or flash
My colors settings are useful and surprisingly intricate; you can set a custom setting for levels in red, green, and blue individually, as well as contrast, sharpness, saturation, and skin tone
Color accent and swap are nice features for the creative type, and are often more accurate than I had expected
Stitch assist mode automatically locks exposure compensation and aperture to make panoramas easier and consistent (I would really recommend a tripod when doing this to keep the camera level, though. Stitch assist software isn't perfect)
Widescreen 16:9 framing is a nice feature (not to be confused with true widescreen, but automatically frames and crops in 16:9 ratio)
4x optical zoom works very well
Extremely fast start-up time (about one second)
Excellent auto-focus features
Amazing battery-life (a pair of Energizer lithiums lasted me about 800 shots with LCD)
Cons:
Only two aperture settings per zoom level in manual mode. ex. f/2.6 and f/5.6 at 1x, but nothing in-between (the A540 has in-between values for each zoom)
Would have been nice to have had a flip-out LCD like the A610
No Aperture or Shutter Speed priority modes (the A540 does have them)
LCD screen extremely hard to see in very bright conditions (although to be fair, this seems like a more common issue among digital cameras)
All in all, the Canon A530 is an excellent choice for the price, and might be the best bang for your buck if you're looking for something with more features than your standard point-and-shoot, along with excellent image quality.
I also use this to take pictures for eBay and it works wonderfully and needs no additional lighting. I have a simple 200watt soft light and the flash doesn't go off when I shoot items. Turning off the flash is even easier it's just one button to push and I can't fathom why anyone can't figure that out.
The ISO 800 setting is much better than on the previous PowerShots, but still isn't perfect. However, this is a point-and-shoot camera and is adaquate for almost all needs if you remember that. I shot some wonderful pictures in a dark concert hall and got excellent clarity on about 80% of the pictures the rest had some slight blurring.
I enjoyed the various settings, especially the stitching, and found them all easy to use and useful. The videos are of pretty decent quality as well, though it's not a video camera.
For the price, this is an excellent camera for everyday use and special occasions.
Buy Canon PowerShot A530 5MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Zoom Now
Before purchased the Cannon A530, I compared it with several other 5MP cameras.(Kodak, Sony, Nikon, Polaroid, HP, Vivitar). I chose the A530 for several reasons: 1The number of shooting modes (over 17), 2It uses two inexpensive AA batteries rather that more expensive Lithium, or other specialty batteries, 3The new ISO 800 setting which reduces camera shake, 4The White Balance Control (Auto, preset for Cloudy, Tungsten, & Flourescent, and the 4X Optical zoom lens, and 5The Post Card Size and the Date Imprint.I takes excellent clear pictures. The color is very true. The exposure is right on. I have tried editing a few photos, and cannot make them any better by editing brightness, contrast,saturation,and color.
Although it has an optical viewfinder, the LCD is bright and clear even in sunlight for composing a shot.
It is on the verge of being too bulky, but Cannon has other smaller models with similar features (at a higher price). I am very happy with this camera and haven't wished I had chosen a different camera.
Read Best Reviews of Canon PowerShot A530 5MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Zoom Here
I thought this Canon deserved more than an average of 3.5 stars, so I'm adding my comments.I bought the A530 for my daughter when it became available on Amazon. She had taken photos, with her three-year-old Sony 5MP, of her roses in macro mode. Most of the photos were out of focus. The Sony just seemed to have trouble focusing on the right subject in macro mode. I have found that Canon cameras take excellent photos, especially in macro mode, and the A530 has not disappointed. She (and I) have taken many sharply focused photos of flowers, up close.
LIKES: Very good quality, features, and price. Sharp and colorful photos. Easy to use, small and lightweight. Improved over the A520 with 5MP instead of 4MP and MUCH faster performance.
DISLIKES: Canon's decrease of LCD pixel resolution per inch on the lastest models A430, A530, A540. A disappointment, but only a small annoyance.
ADDED NOTE: Daylight photos are always better over indoor flash shots, whenever possible, with any camera.
Want Canon PowerShot A530 5MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Zoom Discount?
We got this camera about 3 weeks back and it has delivered beautiful pictures ourdoors and decent ones indoors. The start up is fast and this is particularly helpful to me since I use it extensively to shoot pictures of our toddler who is always on the move and decides to do something new and interesting without a warning. With my old Samsung digital camera I missed capturing a lot of moments due to the slow startup. Also, in my old camera there was a lag between the flash coming on and the actual clicking. My daughter would invariably close her eyes after the flash and all her pictures came out with her eyes closed. Not the case with the A530. The color accent feature is very addictive. It does not gobble up batteries like many other cameras do and the video quality is good too. On the whole I would definitely recommend this camera. It is a steal for the price.
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