Physical Tour

Components

 **Viewfinder**The viewfinder is an optical model that’s matched to the zoom. While this does keep the camera simple, it means that the view won’t match up with what the camera sees if you’re using the macro feature: the LCD screen is the way to go when shooting close ups. The viewfinder also means that you can extend the battery life by turning off the LCD screen; a big boost if you’re trying to stretch out a battery over a long trip into the wilderness. There is no diopter adjustment for the viewfinder, though, so glasses-wearers beware.** ****LCD Screen The LCD screen on the Canon PowerShot A710 IS is a 2.5-inch TFT screen with just 115K pixels. That’s a lot lower resolution than many screens that we’ve seen, and the images look rather unappealing, with fine details not being visible unless you zoom in (the playback mode allows you to zoom in up to 10 times).  ****Flash The medium sized flash is located on the front of the camera, to the right of the lens. Canon quotes the range of this flash as 21 inches to 8 feet: a good range for a compact digital camera. We found it difficult to verify this claim on the show floor of the convention center, so stay tuned to DigitalCameraInfo for a full review. ****Zoom Lens**The zoom is a Canon 6x zoom, with a focal length of 5.8mm to 34.8mm. That’s a 35mm film camera equivalent of 35mm to 210mm; a good wide range for a compact. We would have liked to have seen more range toward the bottom, as the wide angle tends to be more useful for taking group photos and party shots. But it’s a very acceptable length if the lens turns out to be problem free.  

Design / Layout

 **Model Design / Appearance**The A710 IS is a lightweight camera, mostly made of plastic. But this means that the case feels very plasticky and doesn’t feel like it would stand up to much rough treatment. The Canon A-series digital cameras aren't designed to be exceptionally pretty or skinny; instead, the design is all about function. **Size / Portability**At just 8.4 ounces, the A710 IS is a lightweight camera. With dimensions of 3.8 x 2.6 x 1.6 inches, the camera is very portable, although it may be a touch thick to fit into some smaller pockets. But it would fit fine into a small bag, coat pocket or handbag. **Handling Ability**The A710 IS fits into the hand well, with the wide grip providing plenty for the fingers to wrap around. Combined with the lanyard, this camera isn’t likely to slip from your grasp. **Control Button / Dial Positioning / Size The shutter button and zoom control fall naturally under the index finger, with the thumb sitting next to the mode dial. This means that it’s possible to take photos and change modes with one hand, although you do need to tilt the camera to see what mode you are switching to. The exposure compensation button is also within range of the thumb, but the flash and focus mode controls are a little far away to reach comfortably. Oddly, the print button also falls under the thumb, so you do have to be careful not to press this by accident while shooting.  ****Menu**Like most PowerShot cameras, the menu system of the A710 IS is straightforward and easy to use: the Func./Set button in the center of the directional control accesses a number of commonly used options, while the Menu button opens up the on-screen menu for other features. The functions on offer are as follows…    **Ease of Use **The Canon PowerShot A710 IS is a very easy to use camera, with most functions where you need them and common settings only a couple of button presses away. The Func./Set  menu means that commonly changed settings like the ISO, drive mode, etc. can be set within a few seconds, so you shouldn’t miss any shots. 

Modes

 **Auto Mode The A710 IS has a full auto mode where the camera takes control of most of the functions, leaving the user to set some basic functions (such as drive mode) only if desired. In our brief tests, it seems that this auto mode does an effective job of controlling the camera, leaving the photographer with little to worry about. ****Movie Mode**Like its A-series predecessors, the A710 can record videos at a top resolution of 640 x 480 pixels at 30 or 15 frames per second. Videos recorded at the 320 x 240-pixel resolution can get frame rates of 60, 30, or 15 fps - although the fast 60 fps rate lasts for only a minute. The smallest 160 x 120-pixel size shoots 15 frames per second for up to 3 minutes. Unlike previous A-series cameras, the Canon PowerShot A710 IS has optical image stabilization which really helps keep the video smooth. Movies are saved as Motion JPEG AVI files, with mono sound from the built-in microphone. **Drive / Burst Mode**A reasonably good continuous shooting mode is available, which can continuously take photos at a rate of 1.7 per second until the SD card is full. There are no first or last shooting modes, though: the camera keeps capturing all of the images in continuous mode until you release the shutter. The speed of the A710's burst mode isn't very impressive, but its endurance is.** ****Playback Mode**The A710 IS offers a variety of playback modes, including the ability to create slideshows, set up favorites and do basic video editing.** ****Custom Image Presets**A wide variety of scene modes are offered, including Shutter and Aperture priority, plus modes for Portrait, Landscape, Night Scene, Stitch Assist and Movie.  From the special scene menu, you can choose Night Snapshot, Kids & Pets, Indoor, Foliage, Snow, Beach, Fireworks, Underwater, Color Accent, and Color Swap modes.** **** **

Control Options

 **Manual Control Options      The Canon A710 IS offers a full manual control mode, plus aperture and shutter priority modes for shooters who want to take more control of their image making. The manual controls are reasonably easy to use: in full manual mode, you adjust the aperture, then hold down the exposure compensation button to adjust the shutter speed. It’s a far from ideal system, but it works and is fine for occasional manual shooting. If you are going to be shooting in manual mode a lot, buy a digital SLR which provides for easier manual control. ****Focus***Automatic Focus*The auto focus of the A710 IS finds the right focus spot relatively quickly, although it does seem to swim a bit in low light (although we were not able to test it fully in the confines of the Photokina conference hall). The nine-point through-the-lens auto focus system can focus as close as 0.39 inches in the macro mode and 1.8 ft normally.** ***Manual Focus*Manual focus is offered, but much like the manual metering mode, you wouldn’t want to use it too extensively: you set the auto focus mode to manual, then use the left and right directional keys to focus. It didn’t take long to zoom over the range, but there is no magnification of the image to show you when it is properly in focus.* ***Exposure Exposure compensation of two stops up and down is available by using the exposure compensation button, and this can be adjusted in one third of a stop steps.  **

**Metering
**The standard three metering modes are included: evaluative (where the camera analyzes the scene and picks the appropriate exposure), center weighted and spot metering. We were not able to test the efficacy of these different metering modes.

**White Balance
**As well as the standard auto mode, seven white balance presets are present: Daylight, Clouds, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H, Underwater and Custom. The latter uses a white card (or other white object) to try and figure out the white balance.

ISOThe PowerShot A710 IS offers a full auto mode for ISO, as well as a mode that Canon calls High ISO Auto. This is for use in low-light situations where you can’t use flash: it pushes the ISO higher to make the most of the existing light. Manual settings are available for the following ISO ratings: 80, 100, 200, 400, and 800. **Shutter Speed **The shutter speed range is from 15 seconds to 1/2000th of a second. The longer exposure times are only available in the full manual mode.

**Aperture
**The aperture range of the lens is from f2.8 to f4.8. That’s a pretty short range that won’t provide much in the way of depth of field, but that’s not unusual in point-and-shoot cameras.

 

Image Parameters

 **Picture Quality****/ Size Options**Three options are provided for image quality, which Canon refers to as Superfine, Fine and Normal. No option is provided for shooting in RAW mode. The image size options are as follows: Large 3072 x 2304, Medium1 2592 x 1944, Medium2 2048 x 1536, Medium3 1600 x 1200, Small 640 x 480, Postcard 1600 x 1200 and Widescreen 3072 x 1728.** ****Picture Effects Mode**Canon provides a number of picture effects modes, which it calls My Colors. The effects offered include Vivid, Neutral, Sepia, Black & White, Lighter Skin Tone, Darker Skin Tone, Positive Film, Vivid Blue, Vivid Red, Vivid Green, and Custom Color. The latter allows you to tweak how the colors will be processed with sliders for red, green and blue color enhancement along with saturation, contrast, and sharpness. Some pretty freaky effects can be created, but I’m not convinced by these; you could do the same thing with more finesse and better results in an image editing program. 

Connectivity / Extras

 **Connectivity***Software Canon supplies their own ZoomBrowser EX software with this camera, which does a creditable job of organizing and editing images. It’s a Windows only program, though: Mac users will have to find their own solution. Also included is the PhotoStitch 3.1 panorama creation software, which runs on both Windows and Mac, and TWAIN  drivers for importing images directly from the camera into Photoshop or similar programs. **Jacks, Ports, Plugs*Under the rubber cover on the right side of the camera are the power, USB and AV ports. No power adapter is supplied with the A710 IS. The AV cable provides composite video and mono sound outputs for viewing images or watching recorded images on a TV. This output can be switched between the American NTSC standard and the European PAL one.* **Direct Print Options*As well as DPOF and PictBridge support (for flagging images for later printing and connecting directly to a PictBridge printer) the A710 IS can connect to the Canon SELPHY and PIXMA printer ranges. The Selphy CP & ES printers can also print out stills from movie files. *Battery*The A710 IS uses two AA batteries, which can be either disposable alkaline or NiMH rechargeable types. Canon claims a battery life of 100 shots from a pair of alkaline AAs, and 360 shots from their own NiMH rechargeable ones. We were unable to verify these claims on the show floor however. *Memory*The Canon PowerShot A710 comes with a 16 MB SD card. The newer SDHC cards are also supported, and these will offer larger capacities than SD Cards: 4GB SDHC cards are already available, and larger ones will be coming soon. **Other Features***Image Stabilization – The A710 IS is the first PowerShot in the A series to offer optical image stabilization, where an element of the lens moves to compensate for small camera movements (such as shaky hands). Other manufacturers have been offering this for some time in their budget models (Panasonic offers it in cameras priced down to $200), but it’s nice to see Canon following suit. We were unable to test this feature in depth, but it did seem to be effective in our tests at the Photokina show. Safety Zoom* - The A710 IS has an interesting feature called safety zoom: if you don’t mind losing some resolution, you can increase the length of the zoom lens. It does this by only using the center part of the image sensor, effectively boosting the zoom lens to up to a 24X zoom. But this limits the resolution to the small image size, or 12x with the medium 3 image size. 

Overall Impressions

 **Value**With a street price of around $370, the A710 IS is well priced for the features it offers. There are cheaper cameras available that offer image stabilization (such as the $200 Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ5), but these don’t offer the manual functionality and same set of features as the A710 IS. **Who It’s For***Point-and-Shooters* - The A710 offers good point and shoot modes, with hassle-free shooting.  *Budget Consumers – If value is the only criteria, the A710 IS is not a good choice: other cameras offer some of the same features at a lower price.     *Gadget Freaks - It has a certain appeal, but most gadget freaks will want something smaller, shinier or with more buttons.  *Manual Control Freaks* - The A710 IS offers manual control, but it is not easy to use. It might be fine for the occasional manual shot, but real manual devotees will find this camera frustrating to use.  *Pros/Serious Hobbyists* – Pull this camera out at a pro shoot and the models will laugh derisively at you as they throw you out of the room. 

Conclusion

     **Conclusion**The A710 IS offers a lot of nice features: there’s the optical image stabilization, the 7 megapixel resolution and the good movie mode. And it’s fairly priced at around $370. We’ll have to wait and see how the image quality pans out when we do the testing, but the Canon PowerShot A710 IS looks to be a solid camera for the shooter who wants point-and-shoot features, plus a little bit more on top.