Overview
The Canon Powershot A95 is a fairly typical digital camera. It is the flagship model in a group of cameras that are highly acclaimed. At the time of writing (November 2004), if I was looking for a straightforward, versatile digital camera that would cover most situations then this is the model that I would buy.
The first digital camera that I owned was in this range and the cameras have continued to improve. The Powershot A95 will cope well with the full spectrum of social photography from holiday snaps, through general get togethers and parties to shots for the family album.
Image Quality
As with other Powershot cameras the image quality produced by the A95 is very good indeed. The camera is abatable with the shots taken both indoors and outdoors coming up to standard.
Outdoors I found the colours to have great depth to them. The Powershot A95 handles scenes with contrasting colours (light and dark) well. This means that if you decide to make prints from them you can expect a high level of detail to be retained. The pictures tend to be sharp when compared to other cameras in this range too.
Indoors the camera passed all the tests I set it. This is often an area where digital cameras struggle, but even in very low light I was able to produce good quality images.
As you can see from the portrait examples it can handle standard family album shots without any trouble. Whilst it didn't come out as the top camera in this section it does score above average marks. This fits well with the cameras all round performance.
You should be able to produce macro or close up shots of high enough quality to use on the Internet.
Features
For this type of digital camera the Powershot A95 probably has more features for you to use than any other. To start with there is a flip out and twist 1.8" LCD screen. The beauty of a screen that flips out and twists is that it allows you to shoot at different angles and you can also move the screen out of the line of direct sunlight, making it easier to see.
There are thirteen different scene modes. These help the camera to take shots in challenging lighting or composition situations. The modes available are: portrait, landscape, night scene, fast shutter, slow shutter, foliage, snow, beach, fireworks, underwater, indoor, kids and pets and night snapshot.
The built in flash unit has a range of 4.4m. This falls to 2.5m when the zoom lens is in use. The flash modes are automatic, always on and always off. Red eye reduction is also available. Additionally there is an auto focus assist beam that helps the Powershot A95 to focus in poor light.
Close up photography is catered for with a macro mode that lets you get as close as 5cms. When you would like to appear in the picture yourself there is a self timer with a delay of either two or ten seconds.
One area where I would describe the Powershot A95 as a bit limited is when it comes to shooting movies. There are three resolutions that you can choose from 640x480, 320x240 and 160x120. When using the highest resolution you can only capture up to 30 seconds of footage at a rate of 10 frames per second. Using the lower resolutions increases both the length of a movie, up to three minutes and the frames per second, up to 15.
A function called Stitch Assist is available. This helps you to create panoramic shots. You can also add 60 seconds of commentary to an image after you have taken it. This helps to preserve the memory.
There are a number of Photo Effects you can use. These are vivid colour, neutral, low sharpening, sepia and black and white.
Canon supplies all the necessary cables and software to connect the Powershot A95 to a television set and a computer. Likewise you can connect the camera to a printer that is PictBridge compatible and print your pictures without the need to upload images to a computer first.
More advances settings include being able to control exposure compensation, white balance, metering (evaluative, center weighted and spot) and ISO equivalents (50 - 400).
The aperture can be set between F2.8 and F8 and shutter speeds can be varied between 15 seconds and 1/2000 seconds.
Fully manual exposure is available for anyone who would like to experiment as well as aperture and shutter priority.
There is also a facility that allows you to save your favourite settings.
Ease of Use
Partly because of the number of features that the Powershot A95 has it isn't as easy to operate as a similar camera like the Fuji Finepix A340. There are also a fair few buttons and dials on the camera that could look intimidating when you first take the camera out of the box.
The good news is that when you start to use the camera you can place it in automatic mode and start taking pictures. Apart from loading the memory card and batteries there is little more that you have to do before you are ready to get started.
Again, partly because of the rich feature set you could find the menus take some getting used to, but the accompanying manual is well presented and it shouldn't take you too long before you are fully up and running.
Cost
You can pick up the Canon Powershot A95 for around £220.
Style
The Canon Powershot A95 looks like many other digital cameras. Rectangular and shiny silver it has a fairly compact design. One element of the design that you will find very useful is the good sized grip on the front of the camera. This helps you to hold everything steady and produce sharp pictures.
The camera weighs 235g and has dimensions of 101.1 x 64.6 x 34.7 mm. Unlike some digital cameras it is too large to slip into the pocket of your jeans but you shouldn't find it a burden to carry round either.
Batteries and Memory Cards
The Powershot A95 uses four AA batteries. The advantage of AA batteries is that they are easy to find and you can always carry a spare set with you. If you are likely to be a heavy user of the camera then I would advise you to pick up a set of rechargeable batteries and a charger. This will help to keep the running costs down to a minimum.
Canon supplies a 32mb CompactFlash card with the Powershot A95. In fairness this is larger than the standard cards that are sent out with a camera, but even 32mb cards fill up quickly with 5 megapixel shots. Therefore try and get a good deal on a larger capacity card when you are buying the camera. Click here to find cheap CompactFlash cards.
Points I like:
Excellent picture quality.
Wide range of features
Flip out LCD screen increases versatility
Good value for money
Where it is not so hot:
Movie mode is limited
A few less buttons on the back of the camera would make it more accessible.
Summary
The Canon Powershot A95 is a high quality all round digital camera. It provides you with everything you need and more from a standard digital camera. For a start it takes very good pictures and you can either choose to use it as a simple point and click camera or you can take advantage of the many features it offers for a camera in this price range. Recommended.
Canon Powershot A95 Front View
Canon C-765 Top View
Canon Powershot A95 Back View
Sample Menus
Click for: Specification
Top Rated Cameras in this Category
Related Pages
Canon Powershot A95 Review Canon Powershot A95 Specification Canon Powershot A95 Sample Images
