jer420's Full Review: Canon PowerShot A480 Digital Camera
Quick Summary
The Power-Shot A480 is a pretty good Camera for It's price. Even though It is good you can't expect the greatest Images for 100$ or more dollars. For the price there is a decent amount of features to use, but when it all comes down to it, there is not much settings to play around with.
It looks pretty slick for a 100$ camera, It's small, and light, making it easy to take around, It is also simple to use. The batteries are AA Powered, now you don't have to worry about finding the battery for your camera. The bottom line is that if you want a good camera for really cheap, not the best images, but good for It's price, then this would probably be your best option.
Design and Control
The design for the A480 looks nice for It's price. It kind of appears to look more expensive than It actually is. There are 4 colors that you can choose from, Red, Blue, Silver, Black. However the buttons on the back look very cheap, they look like cheap buttons. There is a shutter button located on the top. On the back is zooming controls, playback button, 4 way control pad, Mode button, Menu button, and a 2.5" LCD screen to see what your doing. On the front of the camera is the lens, which has zooming capabilities, there is also a flasher that works alright, but could work a lot better. For the conditions of this camera it looks and handles nicely, and it is also really easy to use.
The feel of the camera kind of sits comfortably in your hands. It may look nice but it has a weird cheap texture to it. The buttons on the back are simple to access, but not the easiest to use. Sometimes when your using the 4 way control you may select something you didn't want to, they need to be a little bigger. All the controls are easy to access, the only problem you might have in the controls are the size of buttons. the menu options are also easy to get to, but is rather a pain, as it takes some time to pick your settings. I am giving the controls and design of the A480 a 7/10
Image and LCD quality
The image quality of the A480 is alright, but it is definitely a cheap camera. When you take pictures with the A480 you have to remember that you are using a cheap digital camera, not a high class camera. Taking pictures of moving objects don't appear very well, they look kind of blotchy, and fuzzy. Close pictures turn out pretty well though, this is probably the kind of pictures you want to take with the A480. There is not enough to complain about when it comes to close pictures. Far away pictures, well that depends on the weather. When the weather is darkish your pictures aren't going to turn out very well. Same as taking a picture in a really bright environment, like the sunrise over a mountain ridge. The camera was just not ment for taking pitures that are far away. I have not been very happy with the far away qaulity. I am going to give the A480 a 7/10 for picture quality.
The LCD screen looks good but It's kind of small. It comes in pretty clear, but for a LCD screen it needs to look a little better. It is hard to see in sun glares, and is also hard to see when your not looking at the screen head on. When your making movies the image is pretty bad, this is not a camera built for making short movies. The screen jitters a lot when you are taking pictures when zoomed in, or making a movie. Your little movies will look like you were running around while you were filming. Far away clips look very bad, It's not even worth it. I would give the LCD quality a 7/10
Features
There are not to many features in a cheap camera this is one flaw back about them. The Camera has a auto mode for those that don't want to mess with modes. It has 12 scene modes for you to choose from. Aquarium, beach, fireworks, foliage, indoor, kids and pets, long shutter, portrait, night snapshot, snow, sunset and super macro.
There is also a red-eye-reduction on the A480. Even though the camera has a red-eye-reduction it doesn't seem to work very well. You can tell the difference a little bit, but not much.
There is a program mode that allows you to adjust the sensitivity ISO 80-1600. You can mess with the white balance, light metering, exposure, and color effects. Even though you can tweak the settings, you can't turn your images into master pieces. Switching modes can be a pain though. When you want to change the mode your in you have to choose form 4 screen selections, Auto, Scene, Program, and Movie. This is also how you select your scene modes, taking up to 10 seconds to get what you want. Making it almost not even worth messing around with the settings. There is not a whole lot to work with when it comes to features, so I'm giving the A480 a 6/10 for features.
Battery
The A480 runs off of AA battery's, making it very easy to maintain. However AA battery's are not meant to last very long. You can get about 200 pictures on the camera depending on how long, and much your using it. When your on a trip you don't have to ever worry about your battery's, you can get them almost anywhere.
Thoughts and Recommendations
I thought that this was a really good camera for It's price. I thought that handling the camera was very easy, and easy to get used to. I also think that the style of the camera looks pretty cool. I have seen more expensive cameras that don't look this nice. I knew that the image wouldn't be very good, but I expected it to be a little better. One huge flaw back is there is not many features, but you can't expect to much of this camera. But, It really could have used some more features, options, and better hardware. I was not to impressed with how long it took to take the picture, once you push the button, It seemed like I was using a older camera. Sometimes the delay was getting really frustrating when wanting to take a quick shot. If your planning on taking shots of moving objects your probably best off looking for a different camera. Unfortunately there is not to much to say about the A480, as far as details, It's pretty basic.
There are many reasons to get, and not to get, the A480. I'll start off with the good reasons to get it. the camera is very cheap, a good camera for a low budget. It is very easy and simple to use, I feel sorry for you if you can't figure out this camera. It is also easy to take around because it is small. the AA batteries makes this a really relevant camera for vacations. There are also many reasons not to get this camera. First of all it takes cheap quality pictures. If your looking for good pictures instead of a good price, then you better move on. If your planning on making short movies with your camera this is not a great option, the movies are pretty low quality. Night time pictures are also bad, often being hard to see.
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