The Canon Powershot A720 IS is an 8 megapixel digital camera with a 6x optical zoom lens. Zoom can be increased when shooting at lower resolutions by a feature called safety zoom. 4x digital zoom is available too.

The focal length of the lens is equivalent to 35 - 210mm in 35mm format. Image stabilisation has been built into the lens.

Canon produce three conversion lenses to increase the capabilities of the lens. The first is a 1.75x tele converter (TC-DC58N). This increases the amount of zoom available. Next is a wide converter (WC-DC58N). This increases the wide angle capacity of the lens. The third is a special close up lens (250D).

• Image stabilisation
• Special resolution for widescreen television playback
• Self timer
• Red eye correction after a photo has been taken
• 60 seconds of commentary or sound can be added to a photo
• Stitch Assist for panoramic photos.

The Powershot A720 IS offers manual focusing. For close up work it can focus from 1cm away in macro mode.

The LCD screen is 2.5 inches in size and is made up of around 115,000 pixels. There is a viewfinder as well.

The built in flash unit has a range of 3.5m. This falls to 2m when the zoom lens is in use. You can increase the range of the flash unit by buying Canon's High Power Flash HF-DC1. This is an external flash unit that attaches to the camera.

Flash modes are Auto, Manual Flash On / Off. Other settings you can use are slow sync speed, red eye reduction, flash exposure compensation, flash exposure lock and second curtain synchronisation.

The scene modes you can use are Portrait, Landscape, Night Snapshot, Kids & Pets, Indoor, Night Scene, Foliage, Snow, Beach, Fireworks, Aquarium and Underwater.

To create something different with your photos you can apply a small number of colour effects. These are Vivid, Neutral, Sepia, Black & White, Custom Color (limited)).

Movies of up to one hour in duration or 4GB in size can be recorded. Although digital zoom is available while recording is in progress, optical zoom can only be applied before recording starts. The maximum resolution is 640 x 480 pixels and the top speed is 30 frames per second. Sound can be recorded as well.

Fully manual exposure can be used, as can aperture priority and shutter priority. Apertures can be set in the range f2.8 - 8 (wide) f4.8 - 8 (tele). Shutter speeds can be set between 15 - 1/2000 seconds.

Other advanced settings include metering (Evaluative (linked to Face Detection AF frame), Centre-weighted average, Spot (centre or linked to Face Detection AF or FlexiZone AF frame)), exposure compensation (+/- 2 EV in 1/3 stop increments), white balance (Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H, Underwater, Custom) and ISO sensitivity (AUTO, High ISO Auto, 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600).

Continuous shooting until the memory card is full is available at a maximum speed of 1.3 frames per second.

All the necessary cables and software are supplied by Canon to connect the Powershot A720 IS to a computer, television set and compatible printer.

If you are interested in underwater photography you can pick up an underwater case for the Powershot A720 IS. This is the WP-DC16. A waterproof case weight is available too (WW-DC1).

Description:	8 megapixels and a 6x zoom lens
Ease of Use:	7
Features:	9
Colour:	9
Macro:	9
Indoors:	8
Value for Money:	9
Style:	9
Movie Mode:	8
Image Quality:	9
Build Quality:	8
Total:	85
Verdict:	"If you would like a digital camera with manual controls, extra lens length, image stabilisation, a viewfinder and a fairly low price then it could be the Canon Powershot A720 IS. There is a lot built into the camera for the money and the picture quality it produces is top notch. Recommended."
Review Date:	October 2007
Related Pages:	Canon Powershot A720 IS Specification Canon Powershot A720 IS Sample Images Canon Powershot A720 IS Features

Camera	Rating
Fuji Finepix S200EXR	87
Panasonic DMC FZ38	87
Canon Powershot SX1 IS	87
Sony DSC HX1	85
Canon Powershot SX10 IS	85
Canon Powershot SX20 IS	84
Olympus SP-590 UZ	83
Nikon Coolpix P90	83

Although every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information on this site, please make sure you double check the feature set and specification at the point of purchase.

Canon Powershot A720 IS