Canon PowerShot A630 8MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Zoom

Customer Reviews:

Just what I was looking for
I think I looked at every camera on the Amazon site and figured out and compared each one to decide which one to buy. I finally decided that I needed a camera that used AA batteries and used a SD card. So then I started comparing the Canons and reading the reviews. I couldn't figure out why the A630 cost about the same as the A620, so decided to buy the one with the most pixels. As you can tell, I am not a camera expert; but, just an ordinary person wanting to take pictures that are above ordinary.

I had a cheap digital camera before that just wouldn't take pictures inside. I could put them in a photo software program and lighten them up a bit, but they just weren't good quality.

A lot of my pictures are taken indoors of kids,people and pets. No one ever shows those pictures when they post them as an example though. I was very concerned that if I got a new camera, it wouldn't be too much different.

Thank goodness the Canon A630 takes great indoor pictures even in my low- light living room. It is absolutely amazing. I have a 14x30 ft. living room dining room combination and when I take a picture at night on on end
of the room, the other end of the room shows up well lit up too.

There are lots of digital cameras out there that don't take good indoor pictures. This camera is not one of them. I'm so happy I decided on the Canon A630. I can hardly wait to take Christmas pictures with it! I know they will be great.
--2006-12-17

Redeye
I replaced my Canon A95 with the A630, and I have the worst case of redeye I have ever seen in a camera. The sharpness of the pictures is no different from the A95 nor is the quality of the images any better. I may go back to my A95.
--2006-12-11

Great - Even for a first-timer!
Aye, this camera is great. I suppose I might be biased, this being my first digital, but I have used cameras borrowed from pals in the recent past, and didn't particularly enjoy them (which is why I wasn't too interested in a digi before).

Quick startup is a big bonus. On my trip earlier this year, I missed many opportunities for good photos with my pal's HP camera, as it took a few seconds to boot, and seconds between photos. The only video I took had to be tossed due to the 15fps blurry quality (and he had no memory card). The digital zoom was horrible, and indoors photos were really crappy - especially at night.

The 30fps movie mode in the A630 is wonderful for a camera of this price - I never use the 15fps mode at all - it's blurry and the picture is 'jumpy,' although if it's done outdoors with good ambient lighting, it seems to work a bit better. I quickly learned to navigate the settings, being a complete novice, but I still need to check the manual on a couple of items that I have no idea about.

Even though it won't fit in my pocket and is heavier than many, the battery life is great. I have the camera over a month now, have taken video, stills with and without flash, deleted and re-shot stuff, and still have not changed the original batteries. If this were my pal's camera, I would have changed batteries after about 8 or so shots. Serious.

I bought a 2GB SD card for it, along with rechargeables and a charger. The only off-key thing I noticed so far is that the images can get pretty grainy on night-time zoomed indoor shots where incandescent (normal) light bulbs are used. As one other reviewer said, I don't know if I have to tinker with the settings to fix this, but that's the only issue I have had.

So basically these things do it for me with this camera:

- Excellent battery life - AA size is easy to get and keep for emergencies
- Excellent video capture with sound
- Quick boot and inter-shot response
- Excellent image quality with little or no blur
- Nice features such as color swap and pre-sets for common situations, apart from manual settings for more advanced users.
- Foldable vari-angle LCD is very very useful - the screen won't get damaged once it's folded in - unlike those with the screen showing at the back. This is great for evaluating your shots, and the quality is pretty good for a small screen.
- Image quality settings allow for maximized space utilization on you SD. (GET a 1-Gig or larger card!)

Drawbacks:

- Some grainy zoomed indoor shots (moreso in nighttime video capture)
- Larger than expected
- Haven't been able to find the correct carrying case up to December 2006! What?!
- Causes me to waste time instead of preparing for my exams! :)

Overall, an easy-to-use, excellent camera, straight out of the box. Would recommend it (and already did - 3 of my coworkers are ordering it, so Canon please organize my cut).

ML.
--2006-12-07

Great Pictures
I had been looking for a new digital camera for over a year. I finally made this my pick. At first I wasn't happy with the menus and settings. But after testing it for a few weeks, I'm very pleased with it.

The pictures are outstanding!! If you have never used a Canon digital(I hadn't) the menu settings and multiple picture settings can be overwhelming. Just set it to "auto" the pics come out great. Then you can slowly learn the various setting(if you want to). I'm a geek so I tested them all.

-It starts up within 2 seconds and the time between shots is just over 1 second(really).

-The flippable LCD screen is great, but, the quality of the image on the LCD is only fair. If this is important to you, this camera is not for you. It really doesn't matter to me, I prefer the optical view finder for 99% of my shots.

-There is NO information displayed in the optical view finder.

-Very comfortable in the hand.

-There is no battery meter (just tells you need to replace).

-A little larger and heavier than a "pocket" camera.

-It takes four AA batteries - which is great, can get them anywhere - no waiting for recharge.

-For a still camera it takes great videos.

I would recommend this camera. It's not perfect - but after much research, it was a good choice for the price range.

Also, I bought a 1GB memory card - so I don't have to work about running out of space.

--2006-12-07

Not what I expected
I currently own a Canon A80 (which I love) and was interested in upgrading to the highly reviewed A630. I received the camera in time for Thanksgiving and took about 200 photos with it in a variety of conditions. Everything was great until I got home and downloaded my photos to the computer. About half of them were blurry... but worse, ALL of my indoor shots had a lot of noise. I took some more test shots, and noticed that the "camera movement" icon came on every time I used the zoom on indoor shots or any time I tried to take an indoor shot without the flash. After calling customer service, I was convinced that I just had a defective camera, so I contacted Amazon and they were wonderful about sending another camera right out.

Today I received the second camera. It was no different from the first. I am a point and shoot photographer who is mostly interested in taking photos of my children... so I took a variety of photos using the same settings on both of my cameras (a80 and a630) then downloaded them to my computer for comparison. I even printed out several photos to make sure the problems weren't with my monitor. Outdoor photos were excellent on both, however there was a huge difference inside. In a well lit room with plenty of natural light from outside, the a630 still produced significant noise, while my a80 on the same setting (auto) produced clear noise-free photos. When my toddler was moving, I got mostly blurry photos with the a630 on auto as well as using the "kids and pets" mode, while my a80 produced crisp and clear photos.

I love Canon cameras, and this was my 3rd PowerShot. I really expected to love this camera as much as my previous Canons. Now I don't know whether I should even try to find a newer camera, if the inside shots are going to be like this.

Things I liked about the a630:

LARGE LCD
Nice quality movies
Scene assists
Great outdoor shots
Very accurate colors
Quick shutter response

Things I didn't like about the a630:

Poor quality inside shots with lots of noise and blurry results.

If I were a pro, I could probably figure out how to use the manual controls to fix my indoor problems... but I'm just a mom who wants some cute photos of her kids, so this didn't work for me. I'm sticking with my slow-but-dependable A80.

--2006-12-06

- Canon