Trying Out the PowerShot A1000 IS
Trust Maria Sharapova's fluffy white dog: PowerShot a good buy.
Dec. 2, 2008— -- For years, electronic companies have relentlessly pushed out digital cameras, many of them quickly forgotten.
There are all these companies making cameras for you to buy, and some of them don't even specialize in cameras, like Panasonic and Samsung.
Many feature the latest gimmicks, like the defunct Kodak Easy Share camera that would post photos on the Web, when "sharing" files was still fresh, or the Nikon Cool Pix starring Aston Kutcher and its touch screen.
All these cameras make for much more competition, harder decisions, and general product overkill, since most of these aren't sold for artistic photography.
The Canon PowerShot A1000 IS is a camera that may be best known for its marketing campaign with Maria Sharapova and her fluffy white dog, but the PowerShot A1000 IS is a camera that is in the less expensive range ($170) and goes above and beyond gimmicky cameras in quality.
On the front of the camera is the hardware. The lens has a 4X optical zoom that keeps the picture in good quality. For very long distance pictures, there is a 16X digital zoom, which, unfortunately, does not produce sharp images. It's the thought that counts, and it's good that they put it in there in case someone really needed to use it.
The lens boasts 10.0 megapixels. There once was a time not long ago (two years) when six or seven megapixels seemed adventurous. Now they are going to reach that on phones in about a year or two. The 10.0 megapixel technology is many months from being perfected, but it still takes good pictures and falls into the top ranks of cameras meant for casual photography.
The top and back is mostly the software. The camera offers an auto setting for most pictures. There's also a scene setting for special photographs (fireworks, dawn/dusk, etc.) and allows the user to change how fine the picture is -- the brightness.
It has a custom self-timer, which allows you to set the waiting time before it takes a picture, and also how many pictures it will take. Taking multiple pictures comes in handy in case somebody blinks.
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