Canon Powershot A650 IS Review Discussion

[Jim Keenan]

Canon’s newly-introduced Powershot A650 IS becomes their self-described "new top-of-the line" A-series camera offering, and anyone who follows Canon knows they view the A-series as providing a lot of performance at a value price. For someone who wants/needs to shoot at 12+ MP with a camera by Canon, there are only five choices in the current lineup: 1Ds-Mk. III, 5D, G9, SD950 IS or the A650 IS. Opt for any of the Canons other than the A650 IS and you can expect to pay anywhere from $90 to $7,635 more for the privilege. The value part of the equation is looking pretty good so far.

Read the full content of this Article: Canon Powershot A650 IS Review

[susfausken]

Hi!

How would you say the ISO performance is compared to the S5?
Is it better, worse, about the same?

[Jim Keenan]

Hi!

How would you say the ISO performance is compared to the S5?
Is it better, worse, about the same?

About the same. The S5 has less pixels but a smaller (physical size) sensor. I was worried the 650 might be noisy because of the jump to 12MP, but Canon increased the physical size of its sensor and it performs very much like the smaller sensored Canons.

[darunium]

Hi There! Thanks for the review!

I'm torn between the A650 and the A570 (and, for that matter, the SD1100 too, although not a lot of reviews are out for that yet).

My use for the camera is travel, I'm going to be traveling for several months both this year and next year. This poses the problem of needing a camera that can deliver high-quality photos in all sorts of situations that is also very mobile size-wise.

I won't be taking many shots of people, mostly objects, but this can range from indoors at night to out in open fields at midday. Weight is not a concern for me, but size is. I will probably be using both Auto (for quick shots) and Manual (to capture scenes of particular interest) settings.

The A570 IS seems to be a higher quality camera than the SD1000 (and PC Mag gave a thumbs down on the SD1100 IS despite their love of the SD1000), but it is of course nearly twice the size. The A650 IS is even larger (and twice the price), so my first question is how much is gained from the A650 to the A570?

My next question is how substantial is the improvement in quality between the A570 and SD1000? (I'd probably go with the SD1100 IS over the SD1000, but I understand that you may not have had a chance to try it out yet).

I'm grateful for any advice on the matter, including any other cameras you think I should check out. Thanks for the comprehensive reviews!

-Darunium

[Andy Stanton]

There's also the A590, which is the newer version of the A570. The A650 gives you more pixels (if that's important to you) and 6x optical zoom rather than the 4x zoom of the A570 and A590. The A650 also has a movable LCD, which is a useful feature.

The SD1000 and SD1100 do not have the manual options that the above 3 cameras have.

Other Canons to consider are the A720IS (similar to the A570 but with 6x optical zoom) and the SX100 (with 10x optical zoom).

[darunium]

Thanks for the advice! I'll post in "what camera should I buy" forum to submit for more general discussion

[jkillick]

Although I'm not offering advice on what to buy (being fully addicted to my SLR) - I have noticed a strange problem which I have never seen mentioned before or have previously experienced myself.

A relative of mine recently paid well over the odds for a A650IS and one of the first things I noticed was that when you look through the viewfinder in wide-angle mode (zoomed out) you can see part of the lens barrel obstructing about 1/5th of the viewfinder. It's obviously not a major issue as you can still compose using the viewfinder if your battery is low or use the LCD screen as normal, but has anyone noticed this before?

Does this occur in all models? This is either an annoying design flaw or this copy is defective and needs returning. Surely Canon should have tidied up little niggles like that for shear completeness!

[GlennH]

The view through the optical viewfinder is apparently an annoying design flaw. I've had my A650 IS for a while, and this is the only complaint I've ever had with the camera.