Nav-i-Bar

Introduction

Lets get something clear from the start. If you are looking for a camera review by an experieinced digital photograher or digital camera reviewer, then maybe you should get over to a site like A-Digital-Eye. On the other hand, if you are a digicam newbie like I was, and want to know what another first time digicam user thinks of this camera, then you've come to the right place.

This review will try to answer some of the sorts of questions that I wish that someone had been able to answer for me about this camera before I purchased it. Questions like…

1. Do I need a 2 megapixel camera or should I just buy the cheaper Powershot A-10?
2. How much does the different compression and resolution settings change the file size and quality?
3. How much memory do I need?
4. What's the battery life like?
5. Is optical zoom really that much better than digital zoom?
6. How does the camera go under different light conditions?
7. Can I use it as a webcam?

1. Do I need a 2 megapixel camera or should I just buy the cheaper Powershot A-10?

Good question. This one bugged me for ages. Should I buy the A-20 , or should I save a couple hundred AU$ and buy the A-10, which is the one megapixel version of this camera. If you are sure that all you really want to do is take photos and display them on a monitor or television screen, then maybe the A-10 is all that you need. For quite a lot of my casual pictures (like snaps at parties and stuff) I drop my A-20 back to the 1024x768 resolution anyway, just to save on space and allow me to get more shots off.

On the other hand, should you ever decide to print any of your pictures, then you will notice the difference. Not so much if you print at normal photograph size, but if you want to enlarge them, or crop and enlarge a segment of a photo, then you will notice the difference.

Also, if you are planning on taking elements from pictures and blowing them up, then the higher resolution is handy since it means that the small (% wise) section of the picture which you copy and paste, will still have a decent resolution. The higher resolution also means more detail when you zoom in, which might matter to some people.

The other issue which arises of course is file size. A 2 megapixel image will obviously be larger, as there is more information to store. And this brings us to question two.

2. How much does the different compression and resolution settings change the file size and quality?

Knowing the answer to this question is really helpful in trying to decide what size memory card to purchase. This was also one of the most difficult questions to get an answer to! None of the camera stores or professional reviews really addressed this to my satisfaction. Now, as the pros point out, the exact file size of any image will vary from image to image due to the amount of detail and 'information' which the image has to store. Recognising that, I decided to do my own test. I decided to take a photo of the same scene at every possible combination of resolution and compression. So everything from 1600x1200 with superfine (minimum) compression, through to 640x480 with normal (maximum) compression. The results are summarised in the table below, however that information alone isn't that helpful since it gives no real indication in the differences in quality.

Which is why if you download this zip file, of all nine pictures, you can see for yourself the difference in quality. I didn't take this witha tripod so the pictures aren't 100% identical. There is also the fact the light changed a little bit due to some clouds blowing around. However the focal point is the same and I tried to capture close enough to the same image for meaningful comparison.

View the best quality image at 'fit to screen', then at 100%, then at say 200% zoom. Then compare that to the lowest quality image. Yes, see the difference!

Armed with this information you will probably have a better idea about what the answer to question 3 is going to be.

3. How much memory do I need?

OK - the best advice here is , don't skimp on memory if you can afford to buy more. The 8MB card which comes with the camera is probably fine if you plan to shoot at medium resolution and compression. Expect about 20-25 images at these medium settings. This, combined with the ability to review and delete images from the camera, means you should be able to go out for the day and use your cam like you would a normal camera with a 24 shot roll of film. But of course this is a digicam and really you want to take as many photos as possible so a bigger memory card is worth the investment. I currently have a 32MB card in the camera, which gets about 100 images at medium settings. This means you can go out for a day or two, be fairly snap happy, and come home with lots of images to choose from.

If you plan on using your camera at the highest quality settings, then the standard 8MB card bites. It will get 8 or 9 images at highest quality, and this is just useless in a lot of cases. If high quality images is going to be your thing, get at least 32Mb so that you can expect to get around 30 images. A 64MB card would probably be nice if you can afford it.

How do I use my memory in practice? The great thing about the A-20 is that it lets you set the resolution and compression settings separately for automatic and manual modes. So typically I have my camera set up to shoot highest quality images in manual mode and medium quality in automatic. This saves time mucking around with the onscreen menu. Typically I have found 32MB to be sufficient for my needs, though I do typically upload my images at the end of each session of taking photos. For longer trips I have been able to borrow a laptop.

4. What's the battery life like?

Before you buy the actual camera, invest in a set (or better still, two sets) of AA rechargable Nicklemetal hydride (NiMH) batteries and a charger. Charge up a set of batteries so they are ready to go on the day you get the camera home. This way, you can straight away put a decent set of batteries into your camera and can discard the very very ordinary set of batteries which comes with the camera when you buy it.

Battery use, as the pros point out, depends on a lot of things like the amount of flash used, how much you have the on screen display on, and how much you use the zoom. So let me talk about some of my experiences.

At the Uni games, I was changing the batteries early in each evening. Typically I was taking 20-30 flash photos later in the evening, and about 50 or so non flash photos the next day. Not once did the battery run out doing this. Of course I was putting in a freshly charged set each evening, but that is why I would suggest getting two sets of batteries. This way, you can always have one set on and charging whilst you are out with the camera.

Another time I went and took about 120 photos (non-flash) before the battery went flat. On this particular day I was also making fairly heavy use of the on screen display to review and delete images.

So, unless you buy a huge memory card or use low quality settings, your memory card is probably going to fill up before your battery goes flat, assuming you are starting with a fresh set each day.

5. Is optical zoom really that much better than digital zoom?

This was something else I struggled with at first, having to pay several hundred dollars more for a camera with an optical zoom. Is it really worth it? Yes. If you want the in depth technical explanation of why, visit one of the proffessional sites. But think about it this way - digital zoom on the camera does the same thing as the zoom function on your image viewer software (or the resize function). You have the same amount of detail, the pixels are just bigger. In other words, when you use digital zoom you are going to loose a bit of quality.

On the other hand, optical zoom is like a true zoom that brings the subject closer and allows you to actually capture more information. I very rarely use the digital zoom capability of my camera because what's the point - if Iwant a digital zoom effect I can do that after the fact with Paintshop!

Now that we have got the optical=good, digital=almost useless issue cleared up, how good is the A-20 zoom. Whilst I can't compare it to other camera zooms, I'm glad that it's a 3x optical zoom. In fact, I wish it was more. But very few digital cameras go higher than 3x in their optical zoom (and none in the price bracket of the A-20), which makes the A-20 a good deal in my opinion.

6. How does the camera go under different light conditions?

As the professional reviews point out, the camera isn't fantastic under low-light conditions. Indoors you will of course need to use the flash. The only issue I have with the flash is that it seems to shoot too low. That is, you seem to need to aim high with the flash.

I also tried using the camera under various forms of outdoor lighting with the flash off. e.g. indoor sports stadium, outdoor tennis court lighting and outdoor field hockey lighting (all at night of course). In all cases the photos were 'ok' when at maximum wide angle, when there was nobody moving (or not moving too fast) and the camera was kept relatively still. Forget zoom under these conditions and forget it if people are moving quick. I didn't try firing the flash off (even the slow synchro flash) to shorten shutter speeds as I was taking photos at actual sports events so flash wasn't allowed.

At dusk and dawn the camera performs acceptably I guess, though obviously the more still you can hold the camera the better. I've found at dusk and early twilight the camera will still capture respectable images, however you may want to play around a bit with the camera's manual controls a bit under these conditions. In particular, I've found that switching to the 'cloudy' setting on the white balance will produce much more colorful images at dusk than leaving it up to the auto white-balance.

In daylight, the pictures are fantastic. At least for my mind anyway. Beautiful bright colors and wonderful sharp colors. Two thumbs up.

7. Can I use the A-20 as a webcam?

Maybe this isn't something that interests you, but then again, maybe being able to also use your A-20 as a high quality webcam is something you'll think is pretty neat. All you'll need is a video card with a TV-in plug, or a cheap video/tv capture card (with a tv-in).

The A-20 comes with a TV-out plug and a TV connector cable. It's actual purpose is to allow you to preview your images on a tv screen. But if you plug the connector cable into your computers TV-in socket instead... voila, instant webcam for use with Netmeeting or your favourite video conferencing software.

You can actually capture straight to video tape too if you feed the TV out cable into the AV/TV-in of your VCR. Cool kind of, even if pretty useless.

That's All Folks

Well, that's all folks. I hope you've found the answers to these questions helpful in deciding whether or not the A-20 is the camera for you.