Canon Powershot A580 Review

Review Date: May 19th 2008
Author: Zoltan Arva-Toth

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Conclusion

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4
Features	3.5
Ease-of-Use	4.5
Image Quality	3.5
Value for Money	4.5

The Canon PowerShot A580 is a worthy successor to an entire line of moderately priced, yet capable compact cameras marketed by Canon over the past couple of years. In two weeks of use, I have found basic operation to be highly intuitive, with the controls working efficiently. Thanks to the matured design concept, the camera is largely free of the handling issues typically associated with small digicams. There were a few exceptions, functions I would never have thought existed if I had not read the manual, but these were few and far between. Operational speed was generally faster than one would expect in this class, with only the burst rate and the flash recycle time being a disappointment. Image quality has also exceeded my expectations in terms of detail, colour accuracy, AWB consistency and centre sharpness. A well-exposed and properly focused ISO 80 shot will produce an excellent 30x40cm print, with ISO 800 still enjoyable at the common 10x15cm size. ISO 1600 is best reserved for Web galleries though.

Casual snapshooters who have grown frustrated with the limitations of their cellphone cameras will find the 8 megapixel Canon PowerShot A580, with its sharp 4x zoom lens, above-average feature set, easy-to-use interface, well-implemented Face Detect function, fairly snappy performance and more than respectable image quality a giant leap forward. I am not so sure about more experienced photographers who are in the market for a carry-anywhere compact camera to supplement their main workhorse, or beginners eager to learn the basics of photography. While the PowerShot A580 caters to them with some advanced features such as spot metering,  flash exposure lock, custom white balance and a usable exposure compensation function, the lack of direct access to aperture and shutter speed may eventually deter them from buying this model, especially given that Canon themselves offer the PowerShot A590IS, complete with a full set of manual controls, optical image stabilisation and support for conversion lenses, for about 20% more.

The Canon PowerShot A580 review unit was kindly provided by http://www.ccsfoto.hu/

PhotographyBLOG is a member of the DIWA organisation. Our test results for the Canon Powershot A580 have been submitted to DIWA for comparison with test results for different samples of the same camera model supplied by other DIWA member sites.

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