Canon PowerShot A70 Review

Overall Rating

Good build quality, superb pictures, manual control over exposure and shutter, creative modes, optical zoom.

Eats batteries, can be bulky for some.

Recommend to potential buyers: yes

Full review of the Canon PowerShot A70
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A brief history of my digital camera fun.

I started about 3 years ago with what was basically a toy digital cam.
This rubbish, but functional item was bought from a giant Pound land type of superstore for the terminally skint, well, I like a bargain . Buy cheap buy twice as they say!
It took pictures at a max resolution of 640 x 480, no LCD screen, no flash and no frills, was quite fun, but soon got fed up with the blocky pics' and the fact that it fell apart in a short time. It did get me interested in digital photography though.

Next I bought a Canon A100, 1.2mp then and A300, 3.2mp. Always liked Canon cameras and had used them in the past as 35mm film compacts. No matter what product you buy from Canon, I recon the quality is first class.
Santa this year was kind enough to drop me off the Canon A70 I'd been lusting after. This model for me, being the next step on from the A300.

First impressions.

Ripping the wrapping paper off and diving in ha, cheers, just what I always wanted! Lush, another digital cam for Chrimbo, building up quite a collection now.
The socks, hankies, smellies and other stocking filler presents discreetly elbowed out of the way so I could give this my full attention!

The A70 takes 4 AA batteries, unlike all the others, that took 2. I think the extra 2 provide reserve capacity to power the excellent 3X optical zoom lens.

I love the fit and feel of the A70, it sits in the hand so naturally. The bulge on the right hand end (caused by the battery compartment) makes for a comfortable hand hold. Index finger sits on the shutter while thumb falls into a dip molded to the rear of the body. Sliding the index forward a tad will operate the optical zoom. This can also be doubled up to about 10x by switching on digital zoom (but with a loss in picture quality). Optical zoom is true zoom with no loss of quality.

The operation of the cameras varied functions for me are a bit like using Nokia phones, being intuitively laid out, and after a short while very easy to operate. Just keep in mind what you want the camera to do. If you think in terms of record (take pictures) & play (look at what you've taken) you now have the basics of how all these cameras work.
Menus are provided for both modes. Again move the thumb a tad and the play and record modes are there at the flick of a switch. The thumb is the main operator here for menus flash options, binning of bad pics'. All of the operational functions would only pad this review and make it a boring read. The Info' provided with the cam will get you going in no time.
The addition of the rotating wheel on top of the cam is a nice addition. This frees up a slightly cluttered back that made my previous Canons a bit more difficult to use.

The Full Auto mode is great, bright, vivid and well focused pictures are the norm here. I think most people will use this as I do. The A70 is also a lot quicker off the mark in terms of start up and the charging of the flash. The A300 used to make you wait around till it was ready to take its next flash shot, often the moment had passed. Fair play to the 300 though, it is a bloody good cam also and would never put it down. You just need to get to know your equipment.
The great thing here is that now your photographic talents can take on a new edge. There is a manual mode giving shutter or aperture priority. Foregrounds can be clear and well focused while the background can be blurred giving a nice depth of field.
Shutter speeds are adjustable, and with the use of a tripod you could get those blurred nigh shots with trailing lights, or blurred waterfall effects. Fast sporting events can be captured with the motor drive mode and a fast shutter speed / large aperture.

Of course if you know your stuff here you'll know all about these nice effects. (I'm not saying I know my stuff here!).
Another nice touch is a night shot mode, ie, a subject in low light can be photographed with flash and the background will be exposed also, instead of being black.

It will take video with sound, the length of which is governed by the size of the flash card.
The lens has a plastic ring surround (that can be rotated anti clockwise to remove). In it's place Tele converters can be attached for wide angle or increased zoom shots, but these will set you back around £70.
It has the old viewfinder with centre cross to line up shots, but don't forget it will not be a true representation of what you're seeing.

The A70 is a super piece of kit, the quality is outstanding. There is tons on here to keep you busy for a long time, but you'll soon grow into it. I recon 3.2 mp is fine for nearly every thing I need. A4 sized pics are of high quality too.

Get yourself some ( NI - MH rechargeable batteries) don't bother with NI - CAD's as these will fail in half the time, + they'll suffer from memory effect. (if you charge them when only flat the battery will think it's full, and slowly loose its capacity) You'll soon find yourself saving a fortune in batteries. Disposables . Paaaah . Don't even think about those either.
A good quality leather case will keep this baby fresh and protected for a long time. I love my gadgets and would hate to see the thing damaged for the lack of some basic protection.

If you want a bloody good digital camera. I order you to buy this now !!!