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- Canon PowerShot A40
- Alastair.'s review
Have a picture of Canon PowerShot A40?, please send it to us.
| Value for Money | 7.5/10  |
|---|---|
| Overall rating | 7.7/10 |
By Alastair.
on 2nd Oct 2002
| Image Quality | 8/10 |
|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 8/10 |
| Features | 10/10 |
| Value for money | 9/10 |
| Overall value | 9/10 |
 Alastair.'s recommendation | |
Good battery life.
Good build quality.
Flexible manual adjustments.
Poor shutter latency.
When assessing any sort of camera, the only thing that really matters is the end result. The Canon Powershot A40 has many advanced features which are designed to get the perfect result: spot metering, variable ISO speed from 50 - 400, several white balance settings, several 'photo effect' settings, and more. Unfortunately, when looking at the final prints, it is still pretty obvious that they have come out of a digital camera. When taking indoor photos, the subject must be within the ideal range of the flash or the picture may come out underexposed, or may have poor contrasting. However, I must say that in good lighting conditions, the quality of my pictures has been exceptional.
Since I was on a tight budget, and I only intend to create prints at 6 X 4", I figured that a 2 megapixel camera would be fine. Many people are recommending 3 megapixels as a minimum and I note that 3 and 4 megapixel models are becoming very affordable. However, I would rather have a 2 megapixel camera with good optical hardware than a 3 or 4 megapixel model which produces rubbish.
The A40 has two main shooting modes: manual, automatic and program. My photography skills are very amateurish, and I prefer to stay away from the manual setting. However, using the 'program' setting allows a semi-automatic form of operation. Basically, it configures camera's computer to set the aperture and shutter speed, but allows the user to configure any other particular setting to automatic, or to a specific setting. Whilst the shutter speed in this mode is set automatically, there is an 'exposure compensation' setting which allows you to force the camera to deviate from its perceived ideal shutter speed if necessary.
It is a pity that the A40 only ships with an 8mb memory card (at a guess, this would allow 10 - 12 shots at best resolution), but this seems to be standard on most digital cameras. It does come with an attractive carry case, wrist strap, and an instruction manual which is very comprehensive and easy to follow.
The A40 is a bit bulkier than many other models in this price bracket, but I don't find this to be a problem. The battery life (running on 4 NiMH AAs) appears to be very pleasing but, like all cameras, battery consumption will vary depending on usage patterns. The 3x optical zoom featured on this model works very well. In general, if you don't want to spend too much money, but you want something reasonably professional, then the A40 is a great choice.
| Helpful | Unhelpful | Agree | Disagree |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
Total Respect: +4
Would you like to see a review that's not being listed?
Dennis. on 16th Oct 2002
TM. on 14th Nov 2002
Informed. on 5th Dec 2002
Tashi. on 6th Dec 2002
Alastair. on 8th Dec 2002
A Little More Informed. on 28th Dec 2002
Buncey. on 21st Jan 2003
Another Informed Canadian. on 1st Apr 2003