Check out my photos from Humpy Island for some more samples.
This year as a very big (and late) birthday present I bought myself a Canon Powershot A720, which has 8MP of resolution, a 6X optical zoom, optical image stabilisation, up to 1cm macro, and the ability to control all the settings instrumental to creating a photograph, such as aperture size, shutter speed, ISO, and focus.
Olympus Mju 820 and Canon Powershot A720 comparison
When I was looking for a camera to buy I was originally planning to buy an Olympus, because that is what we’ve always had, and I’d also just purchased a XD type memory card which only works in Olympus and Fujifilm cameras. After looking around, I decided that the Olympus Mju 820 fitted my needs pretty well. It had 8MP of resolution, a 5X optical zoom (the Canon had 6X), a digital image stabiliser (compared to an optical stabiliser for the Canon) and could take photos up to ISO 3200 (higher ISOs are very good for lowlight shots, the Canon A720 only goes to 1600). It also had a 3cm macro (while the Canon A720 has 1cm macro).
More specs for the Olympus Mju 820 included the blazing fast 7 frames per second drive mode, and a maximum 4 second shutter speed for night shots. The Canon Powershot could only take about 1.5 frames per second but had a maximum of a 15 second shutter speed. The Olumpus Mju 820 also had a movie mode that could take 10 seconds of 30fps video at 640×480 resolution, but the Canon Powershot can take videos at that resolution to a maximum of 1 hour!
Why I bought the Canon Powershot A720
All of the above factors contributed to my decision to buy the Canon instead of the Olympus, but the deciding factor was a review of the Olympus Mju 820 by imaging-resource.com that said the Olympus had fairly bad colour fringing problems, which mean that the camera adds coloured edges to bright sections of a picture. In addition, the Olympus Mju 820 had a tendency to produce soft photos, which I certainly didn’t want. By contrast, the Canon Powershot A720 received a glowing review.
Where I bought the camera
After looking around, I decided that eBay was the cheapest place to buy the Powershot. I chose eBay user digital-rev-oz, because they had been using eBay for 7 or 8 years and their feedback rating was excellent. Once I bought the camera, it took about 13 days to get delivered to our house. Once the package arrived, I tried to rip it open straight away but was defeated by the layers of wrapping that they had used. I had to get the scissors to open it properly.
First Impressions of the Canon Powershot A720
When I first turned the camera on, it was a pleasant surprise not having to wait the 4 seconds that it took for my old Olympus to power up. The A720 only takes about 1.5 seconds. The focusing and photo taking speed is really fast too (in comparison to my old camera). If you go back to the Imaging Resource review of the A720, all the speeds for this camera can be found there.
The design of the camera can’t be complained about, although I wish that they had a button instead of a switch that could be used to switch between viewing and taking photos. The battery compartment is securely located at the bottom of the camera and can’t be accidently opened. The position of the flash at the front is a bit annoying, especially for me, because when I grip the camera with both hands I often cover the flash without knowing.
So all-in-all, I’m very pleased with my new Powershot A720, and you can expect to start seeing photos on Contrasting Sharply, my photoblog, this week. I’ve put some sample pictures in below.
A photo of our cockatoo called Daisy.
A nice macro of a little brush.
Another nice macro of a special type of building nail
A creative type shot of our big yellow table.
