Reviews Written by Grant

Great little camera

Pros: Lots of exposure modes, image stabliser, easy to use.

Cons: Supplied 32MB SD memory way too small.

I moved up to this model after using a Canon A470 camera. The A590 adds image stabiliser and more control over the exposure with settings for Program, Aperture or Shutter Speed priority. The image stabiliser works well at maximum zoom allowing steady shot, also for macro closeups, for example when the wind is blowing a flower about.

I bought a 4GB fast SD HC memory card for the camera as the supplied 32MB memory is way too small. Having a large memory allows me to store images at best resolution and superfine quality. Images can be resized and have the quality reduced for smaller files destined for web sites.

The camera is easy to use, although the screen is difficult to view in sunlight, I suspect this would be the case for any camera screen. The viewfinder is handy at times particularly in bright sunlight when the screen is too hard to see, one reason for me upgrading to the camera was to get the viewfinder option.

The software supplied with the camera is okay, but I prefer to use the free Irfanview windows program for image resizing and cropping. There's an option for stitching a series of shots together which works quite well. The camera image downloader software is good, creates dated folders on the fly for images.

The prices on Australian websites varied widely, RRP is AU$169, I paid a little less than this for Internet mail order plus delivery, and about $25 for the 4GB memory card.

I like it! ...