Canon PowerShot A520 4 Megapixel Compact Camera - Pricewatch : Price Comparison for CPUs, Videocards, Motherboards, Soundcards, Monitors, and more

This is my first digital camera...

Strengths: Excellent photo quality; compact size; full manual controls; 4x optical zoom; strong flash; excellent battery life with NiMH rechargeables; easy to use; expandable; great value.

Weakness: Slow performance (startup, shot-to-shot and flash recycle); movie mode not all that great; some redeye.

This is my first digital camera and I bought it after doing a lot of research. I must say it's a great choice. I've taken thousands of photos with it over the past few months and am very happy with it. It has plenty of scene modes and takes great photos on "Auto" but also offers full manual controls, which is very rare in a camera priced in this class. It's small (smaller and lighter than the A85...
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This is my first digital camera and I bought it after doing a lot of research. I must say it's a great choice. I've taken thousands of photos with it over the past few months and am very happy with it.

It has plenty of scene modes and takes great photos on "Auto" but also offers full manual controls, which is very rare in a camera priced in this class. It's small (smaller and lighter than the A85 it replaced), portable, easy to use and stylish. Picture quality is excellent. (Some shots I took on it rivalled the quality of shots taken on my father's Digital Rebel XT, believe it or not.)

The 4x optical zoom lens is more than what is offered on most standard zoom digicams. It has an AF-assist lamp to help focus in low light, the LCD is bright and visible in low light and there's an optical viewfinder to bail you out. The controls are easy to use and intuitively placed. The camera is well-constructed and doesn't feel "cheap".

While alkaline batteries are mostly useless in digital cameras, this gets great battery life if you pick up a set of rechargeable NiMHs, and it's nice having the option to throw in a set of AAs to get through the day if the rechargeables die unexpectedly. That's why I prefer this kind of camera to one that uses proprietary Lithium-ion batteries.

Now, the negatives: There's some redeye, but then most compact cameras have a little and it's no big deal to remove in software. The movie mode only allows 30-second clips and not recording until the card is full, and its quality is somewhat lacking. But that's not that big a deal to me since I rarely use the movie mode.

My only real complaint is that it's a bit sluggish sometimes, especially when powering up to take that quick shot, or in the delay between shots. If Canon had added its DIGIC II processor to this camera, it would be pretty close to perfect. Even so, I highly recommend this camera for the beginner-to-enthusiast. It makes a great family camera as well.

By segacs - Jul 4, 2005

This camera is essentially the...

Strengths: Convienient size, light and comfortable in hand, well located zoom and shutter controls, easy to use, takes great pictures, lots of options to experiment with more advanced techniques, good manual

Weakness: None.

This camera is essentially the third in a series of Canon cameras that started with the A80 and A85. My wife and I have used the A80 for a few years now and have been exceptionally happy with it, so after again thoroughly checking out the competition (hey, I'm an engineer - I can't help myself :-), we decided to purchase the A520 as a graduation gift for our daughter. The A520 shares the same...
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This camera is essentially the third in a series of Canon cameras that started with the A80 and A85. My wife and I have used the A80 for a few years now and have been exceptionally happy with it, so after again thoroughly checking out the competition (hey, I'm an engineer - I can't help myself :-), we decided to purchase the A520 as a graduation gift for our daughter. The A520 shares the same basic electronics (DIGIC processor) and features as the A80 and A85, but has 4x (versus 3x) optical zoom, uses two AA batteries (vs four), uses SD memory (versus compact flash), is significantly lighter, and somewhat smaller. Like its predecessors, the camera fits well in the hand, and places the zoom and shutter release literally right at ones (index) fingertip. (I have found some of the smaller cameras that are sized to fit in a man's shirt pocket to be too small to hold comfortably; they always feel like they are about to slip out of one hand and too small to hold with two hands.) The camera is well-designed and solidly built and has good optics. Most importantly, it takes great pictures! 4M pixels allows one to judiciously use the digital zoom (in addition to the optical) without giving up enough pixels to compromise the picture quality. There are numerous, well-chosen automatic settings, but for those who want to experiment, there are an incredible number of manual shutter controls as well. My daughter has used my wife's A80 to create some incredible low light shots and nature close-ups using the features common to both cameras. I regularly see comments on the Canon A-series cameras being quick to consume batteries. This has not been our experience (and is maybe why the A520 now only uses two AAs). However, I would recommend buying some inexpensive re-chargable batteries (W***mart) if you plan to use the camera a lot or care about the environment. The 16MB SD memory that comes with the unit is OK to start with, but I'd recommend waiting for a good sale and purchasing a 256MB SD card (or more if it's cheap); half the joy of a digital camera is taking lots of pictures and deleting those that you don't want. Practice makes perfect. :-)

By boyohboy - May 22, 2005

One of the best budget cameras...

Strengths: Great auto-focus, superb battery life, high resolution. Small size, light weight, sturdy. Easy to use manual modes. Many accessories available.

Weakness: Slow flash cycle. Slight shutter lag. Picture to picture time is a little slow. Tripod mount not in-line with lens. Lots of "noise" at ISO400.

One of the best budget cameras I've ever used! This is a great camera for the beginner and amateur photographer alike, since it has many scene modes and plenty of manual controls. It can grow with you as your skills improve if you choose to learn how to use it. This camera works great as a basic point and shoot, but with a little tweaking, great low light (long exposure) and macro shots are also...
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One of the best budget cameras I've ever used! This is a great camera for the beginner and amateur photographer alike, since it has many scene modes and plenty of manual controls. It can grow with you as your skills improve if you choose to learn how to use it. This camera works great as a basic point and shoot, but with a little tweaking, great low light (long exposure) and macro shots are also possible.

I did not notice any noise at ISO 50. At ISO 100-200, the noise is more noticeable, but also acceptable. The noise levels at ISO 400, however, are awful. Pictures taken at the ISO 400 setting are not usable without more extensive post-processing. I was very disappointed at this, since my old Olympus C-5050 produces less noise at ISO400, and that camera is almost 3 years old. Left in the automatic modes, the pictures are sharp and well saturated.

The camera feels sturdy and light, and is small enough to fit inside my pocket. Although this camera is not as small as the digital elph series, or made entirely out of metal, it is smaller than the previous generation (A85) and fits in my hand better. I have big hands, and with the elph series in particular, I always got the impression that I'm about to drop it! With the A520, I can confortably grip it with both hands for steadier shooting.

I found that battery life is quite good while using rechargeable NiMH batteries. I was able to do an entire day of shooting, with the screen and flash on, with just 2 sets of batteries.

The only significant drawbacks I found were the shot to shot delays. While in burst mode, the camera can capture almost 2 fps, but in the normal modes, it takes at least 2-3 seconds to snap pictures with the flash turned off. This isn't so bad, but it means that you need to be a little more judicious as to when to take a picture. With the flash on, the delay rose to about 5-8 seconds, depending on how far your subject is. If the flash does prove to be a problem, Canon does offer an external flash unit with its own power source.

I was happy to see that the camera had several accessories. You can add an additional telephoto or wide angle lens. There's even an underwater kit for the more adventurous. As with most digital camera, the bundled 16mb SD memory card is too small. In the 4.0mp superfine setting, each picture can take up to 1.5mb.

Overall, this is an excellent camera for the money.

By bravotsx - Jun 29, 2005

Good camera but not idiot proof

Strengths: optical zoom, battery life

Weakness: red eye, flash recycle, auto focus

I compared photos taken before the purchase with test photos for Sony, Kodak, Panasonic and Nikon. All camera were in the same price range, but the Canon's were a little sharper. Now that said. The camera isn't as easy to use as a kodak. My wife doesn't like it much because you have to know what you are doing to get good pictures. Yes it does have a auto everything selection, but using auto...
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I compared photos taken before the purchase with test photos for Sony, Kodak, Panasonic and Nikon. All camera were in the same price range, but the Canon's were a little sharper.

Now that said. The camera isn't as easy to use as a kodak. My wife doesn't like it much because you have to know what you are doing to get good pictures. Yes it does have a auto everything selection, but using auto everything doesn't get you the best pictures if you are inside. It works great outside, but for inside you will need to use a different setting and will actually get the best results by going to manual. This is really true if you will be using the flash.

Why? well if you use the flash and don't go to manual you can't set it for the lowest flash power possible. You will want to use the lowest setting though or you will have two bad experiences... 1) redeye will be very bad. 2) the cycle time for the flash will be very long. You can avoid those two problems though by using the lowest possible flash and compensating for it in f stop and shutter speed.

Also, you will want to turn off the camera's automatic auto focus. The camera does a very bad job of telling what you want it to focus on. You have the option to just focus on the center square and that is the only reliable thing to do. Otherwise the camera tends to just focus on the high contract straight lines. If someone is standing close to a door it will almost always focus perfectly on the door's edge and not the person standing in front of it.

So, I say all these negative things and give it 4 stars... the reason is good things about a camera are easy to find but the bad ones are often over looked. And for the camera in its price range it gives the best results. It just requires a little more thought than the other cameras.

If you want a idiot proof camera get a Kodak, just know that Kodak's compress the images more than just about any other brand.

If you want the fastest recycle time get a Sony, they are way faster than the Canon. Although the pictures aren't quite as crisp and you will be forced to use memory sticks that tend to cost more than SD.

And you can still go with Nikon, you just wont get as many features for the same price.

So, for those reasons... the camera is a solid 4 or 4.5

By thomas998 - Nov 27, 2005

I have not been using the camera...

Strengths: Small size, not too heavy; 4x optical zoom (3x seems to be std); can manually set aperture and shutter speed; powered by AAs, so don't need to carry around charger or worry about camera dying

Weakness: not pocket-size; long delay between consecutive pictures

I have not been using the camera for very long, but so far i have found that its got everything I need. I like the fact that it is a little more manual than most point-and-shoots, giving you the ability to control aperture and shutter speed. makes the camera much more versatile. There's not really much about this camera that i don't like. It was a toss-up between this one and the SD300 (elph...
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By manish46 - Apr 20, 2005

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