canon a20 review
Facts:
- Camera Name: Canon A20
- Price Paid: CDN$549 (US$ 361) + 14% tax
- Place of Purchase: A-Power Computer (www.a-power.com)
- Purchase Date: June 2nd, 2001
- Extra Power: 4 sets 1600mah NiMh + 1 fast Maha charger for US$70
- Extra Memory: 48MB (will buy 128MB for CDN$150 later)
Features:
- CCD: 2.1M (quite sufficient)
- Photo size:
1600x1200, (useful for serious photos, 8x10 when printed)
1024x768,
640x480 (useful for "Diary" pictures, to record story digitally). - Optical zoom: 3x (35mm to 105mm, step zoom)
- Digital zoom: 2.5x (sometimes useful)
- Power: 4 AA batteries (Purchase of NiMh rechargeable is a MUST)
- Storage: compact flash (8mb default, at least 48MB to be practical)
- Extra: Stitched assisted panorma mode
- Most Useful features: 3x optical Zoom, white balance
[View Pros and Cons]
Sample Photos:
- Click on the gallery thumbnails (after No. 7) will bring you to the galleries with hundreds of photos.
- Otherwise, clicking on the thumbnail will bring you to the picture (avoid clicking "view").
- Most sample photos are NOT enhanced (except those photos without extra information).
- All (except the photos on this page) had been sized down to 800 x 600 (and lower resolution) to conserve space.
- The photo information is directly captured from JPEG file.
Canon A20 can takes
pretty good day time photos.
The camera has a habbit of
picking the focus point randomly
(perhaps getting inspiration from
some arcane divine rules).
But as long as there are lots of light,
it can focus pretty well.
Taking photos of ducks with this
camera is fun and easy.
The camera is fast (compare with
other cheap digital cameras). It
won't miss the duck (... sometimes).
But of course,
it can't compare with a regular
SLR camera.
If there's only one good thing
about the Camera A20, then it
must be the Macro photos for
flowers.
Flowers are huge and the stupid
foucsing mechanism in Canon A20
won't miss it so easily.
The night photos with Canon A20
is a bit limited but still pretty good.
The slow shutter is only 1 second.
Many other cameras can take "more visible" night
time photos. But they also have lots of noise (except
with high end camera like Nikon 995 or Canon G2)
The viewfinder is extremely unaccurate.
The things you see from the
viewfinder is 100 miles away from the true
pictures.
Since the power is cheap,
I used my LCD almost 90% of the times which I
could never dream of with my previous camera.
The white balance is extremely useful
because lots of time the dumb
camera can't figure out what is really
white.
In nature light, the AWB is good.
Without flash, the AWB is always wrong.
This is a two click feature.
Taking Macro pictures of things with "Viewable" size is easy.
The panorama photos are not as good as old models. With my Canon A5, I can take vertical and matrix photos (with visual guide) but Canon A20 only has horizontal.
The Macro is not too "Macro". It probably got the worst Macro for cameras with similar price. But the picture quality is good.
Bigger but uglier is not much better than smaller and prettier.
Why would anyone use regular batteries?
If you are that rich, give it to the poor.
If you only use this camera occassionally
(e.g. 30 photos / trip), then you can
buy those cheap $10 Nimh charger.
For heavy usage, 1600mah Nimh is a
must. My config is - Maha 204f 3 hour
charger. 3 sets of Nexcell 1600mah batteries
+ 1 set of Maha 1600mah Powercell batteries.
2 sets of the Nexcell batteries last more than
200 photos with heavy LCD usage and flash.
1 set of Nexcel and the other Maha batteries
only last 30 to 60 photos before it die.
So it's a matter of luck how well you batteries
perform.
With LCD off, you basically can take photos
indefinitely.
The nimh batteries will lost around 1% power/day, faster
if warmer, slower if cooler.
It happens to all nimh batteries.
You can buy the batteries from thomas-distributing.com
I paid US$70 for my 4 sets plus 1 Maha fast charger. They
give you lots of free junks (one is a free table
cleaning cloth). It's free. It's better than nothing.
One of the limited "manual" feature is exposure compensation. It's a one-click feature. Pretty useful and practical.
Pro (in sequential importance):
- Relatively small
- Pretty good picture quality
- Unlimited powers with extra NiMh batteries
- Easily accessible for frequently used features
- Can remember date and preference after battery change.
- Cheap
Con (in sequential importance):
- lack of manual features.
- 1 secnod shutter is a bit short
- Poor focusing in low light (fixed in firmware upgrade)
- Limited Macro
- Viewfinder not very useful (but I never use it anyway)
Questions:
Will I buy Canon A20 again if I make the purchase now?
Yes, there is a 100% chance I will end up with the same camera. I have already
known the weakness before my purchase.
Who is this camera for?
Not for people who want to "play" with their cameras. There's
a "lack of manual features" with this camera. I used to have two SLR
cameras (I lost both). Switching to a point and shot camera is pathetic.
But I guess if my secondary objective (taking photos) is hindering my primary
objective (travel) then it is even more pointless. So I settle with A20 and is quite happy with it.
My number one priority is it fits into my pocket (for convenient and security
reason). It also takes "pretty good" photos (compare with camera in
similar price, the photos are excellent). The power is easily accessible
(can use AA batteries in emergency).
Bottom line: This is an extremely useful and practical camera with not much fancy features.