Canon PowerShot A70

If you're a relative newcomer to digital photography but want a camera with both a range of automated settings and more advanced features to explore as your confidence grows, the 3.2megapixel Canon PowerShot A70 has you firmly in its focus.

This is an impressively versatile camera with no less than 12 shooting mode options. You can switch between them with ease using the dial mounted on the top of the unit.

The most straightforward of these is the auto mode but the A70 also offers portrait, landscape, night scene and action settings to help you get the best possible shot without having to delve into the manual settings menus.

For the more confident photographer, there are four advanced modes which allow you to fine-tune all the camera settings manually.

Lastly, a video-shooting mode option allows you to record up to three minutes of movie footage with sound.

There are four image size options to choose from, ranging from 2048 x 1536 pixels, down to 640 x 480 and three image quality settings - superfine, fine and normal.

The PowerShot A70 is a bit bulky and heavy thanks to its four AA batteries but it was comfortable to use and produced some excellent quality shots.

The 3.2x optical zoom is smooth to use and as the macro mode allows focusing just 5cm from your subject, some excellent close-ups were possible.

A button next to the clear screen makes it simple to switch between shooting and review modes so you can look at the shots you have already taken and delete any that didn't turn out too well.

A 16MB Compact Flash card is included along with a USB cable to download images to your PC.

The £300 price tag may be fairly typical for a three-megapixel camera but excellent image quality and buckets of features should keep both the novice and more experienced digital photographer satisfied.

Contact: Canon 0870 514 3723
www.canon.co.uk

Also consider:
Samsung Digimax V4
A great value 4megapixel camera.