Optics and Resolution
The PowerShot A60 features a 2-megapixel sensor that can capture images up to 1,600 x 1,200 pixels, producing print enlargements up to 8 by 10 inches. It's also equipped with a 3x optical zoom lens (35-105mm, f/2.8-4.8) to cover a wide selection of photographic opportunities, as well as a 2.5x digital zoom. The PowerShot A60 also features Canon's five-point AiAF (Artificial intelligence Auto Focus) system for focusing accuracy, shutter speeds of 15 to 1/2,000 second, and fast sequence shooting at a rate of 2.6 frames per second (fps).

Movie Mode
Shoot up to three minutes of MPEG video at resolutions up to 320 x 240 pixels with sound, editing controls, and VCR-like playback. The movies aren't camcorder quality, but they're fun and convenient, and they're perfect as e-mail attachments. The camera can also attach voice memos or sound files of up to 60 seconds to each image.

More Features
Offering a wider scope for photographic experimentation, Canon has also included manual, aperture priority, and shutter priority exposure modes. These modes are supported by a metering system that boasts evaluative, center-weighted average and spot options. Canon's DIGIC (DIGital Imaging Core) processor ensures excellent color rendition and white balance for every shot, as well as super-fast auto focusing, noise-free imaging, and advanced flash exposure performance.

Other features include:

• 1.5-inch TFT (transreflective) LCD monitor.
• Built-in flash with auto, on, off, manual, and red-eye reduction modes.
• Shot modes include manual, portrait, landscape, night scene, stitch assist, and more.

Storage and Transfer
Images and video are stored on CompactFlash memory cards (Type I only) and the included 16 MB card holds approximately 26 images at the Large/Fine setting. Files can be downloaded to either a Mac or PC via USB connectivity, which means it can be connected to any USB-based Windows 98/Me/2000/XP and Mac OS 8.6 or later computer without installing any software.

Printing
Canon has introduced a series of printers designed to work directly with its lineup of digital cameras. Using these printers, no computer is required--simply connect the camera to the printer and start printing. Printers include Canon's bubble jet direct printers S830D and S530D, and card photo printer CP-100. Of course, photos from your camera can also be printed on any home computer system with an inkjet printer, sent off for online processing, or simply enjoyed on your computer screen.

Power, Size, and Contents
The camera is powered by four AA batteries (alkalines included; rechargeable NiMH batteries recommended). It measures 4.0 by 2.5 by 1.3 inches and weighs 7.6 ounces (without batteries). This package includes the PowerShot A60 digital camera, 16 MB CompactFlash card, four AA batteries, USB and AV cables, wrist strap, and ArcSoft Camera Suite CD-ROM and USB drivers for Windows and Mac.

I came to this website before I bought the A60, and read all the good and bad things about this camera. So far the only bad thing I have come across is the ocassional soft focusing, but this is not a problem unless you want professional quality photographs.

BOTTEM LINE: This is an AWESOME digital camera for beginners.

Picture processing is quick, and pictures look great, with little noise. Nice plus is it takes cheap AA batteries (get a charger) and uses Compact Flash cards... Easy to get and cheap! This camera is so feature rich, you will learn something new every time you use it.

Yes, the shutter lag at times is very long (especially in low light even with AF assist), and the flash indoors is at times weak, but the positives FAR outweigh the negatives. You have so much control, you can manually make many of these issues, non-issues. I took 1600+ shots the first week I owned it because of all the options you have to play with. For the price here at Amazon, w/free shipping, Buy 2!

My dad is relatively averse to new technology, so I knew I needed to get a camera that does not need loads of adjustments to use. When I took this camera out of its box, I was surprised at how nice it felt in my hand. It has overall sturdy construction with pleasing silver finish. Also the zoom is easy to use and layout of the controls is very intuitive. Let me say it took me only about 15-20 minutes to give my dad a crash lesson on how to use this equipment and that's saying a lot. I did not teach him the advanced controls of course, but he was happy with the user-friendly controls. I did not have to read the entire manual (quite thick by the way) to learn the general controls, which is a big plus.

Now the reason for the 4 stars. First of all, if you are new to digital photography, make sure you buy a set of rechargeable Ni-Mh batteries (over 2000mA would be preferable; higher rating means it will last longer, the range is from around 1500mA to 2400mA for AA batteries). This camera comes with regular AAs which won't last more than 50 shots. Also the battery door was flimsy and somewhat tricky to operate. The accessories panel on the left side of the camera is rubber and also looks flimsy. Lastly, I had to purchase the camera case from Canon separately, and I strongly believe you need this to protect the camera. So two flimsy doors and missing case gives this camera 4 stars, but those are minor details to many.

If you are looking for good entry-level camera out there don't hesitate and settle on the Canon A60. It has crisp pics, great controls, and bargain price. Don't get carried away by all those 5-megapixel jargon..... it doesn't always reflect the overall quality of the camera.

However, the controls are a bit complicated. Perhaps that is because there are so many features, but it took me a while to find my way around and it still does not seem nearly as intuititive as the Kodak was. There is also a slight delay between when the shutter is pressed and when the picture is actually taken. Finally, the optical viewfinder is not accurate, the only way to make sure of the framing is to use the LCD. These are minor gripes. Overall I am very happy with this camera.

- Impossible to record the "date picture taken" on the image.
(Trying to pass for professional camera? :) Many simplier models have this useful feature).
- Zoom lever is not most conveniently located. It would be easier if it was on the back of the camera.
- Navigation buttons look strange being round instead of arrow shaped. This is changed in Power Shot A80.
- Power on/off button is easy to be accidentally activated. Sliding type would greatly decrease the chances.
-Every time the camera is turned on, a lot of energy is used to mechanically extend the telescopic lenses. If they were fixed with attachable cap, battery performance could be improved; size, however, would definitely suffer. Reliability of lenses moving motors is naturally limited, which possibly could be the the cause for the famous Error 18.
-Ergonomics. "Set" button, could be better positioned somewhere near the side navigation buttons - on the right, as set up on most cameras.
-Camera also doesn't come with sufficient memory card and reliable battery/charger, requiring spending additional money on accessories. This is, however, what keeps the price at its level.
-Side rubber cover can break if used repeatedly over a long period of time. Design could be more reliable if the cover would open freely.
-Very important issue - batteries have to be removed every time they need to be charged, which places great strain on the plastic battery cover that would eventually break with extensive use. Cameras that enable batteries to be charged without removing them, greatly exceed the durability in the long period of use.
-Plastic tripod thread, less durable compared to metal ones.

Despite all the listed cons, this is a very modern camera with superior image quality and outstanding set of features and controls. I am very pleased with PowerShot A60 so far and would not hesitate to recommend it to many photo enthusiasts.

- Impossible to record the "date picture taken" on the image.

(Tribute to being a pro-camera? Many simplier cameras have this useful feature)
- Zoom lever is not in the most conveniently located. It would be eaier if it was on the back of the camera.

- Navigation buttons look strange being round instead of arrow shaped. This is changed in Power Shot A80.

- Power on/off button is easy to be accidentally activated. Sliding type would greatly decrease the chances.

-Every time the camera is turned on, a lot of energy is used to mechanically extend the telescopic lenses. If they were fixed with attachable cap, battery performance could be improved; size, however, would definitely suffer. Reliability of lenses moving motors is naturally limited, which possibly could be the the cause for the famous Error 18.

-Ergonomics. "Set" button, could be better positioned somewhere near the side navigation buttons on the right, as used in most cameras.

-Does not come with sufficient Memory card and reliable battery/charger, requiring spending additional money on accessories. This is, however, what keeps the price at its level.

-Side rubber cover can break if used repeatedly over a long period of time. Design could be more reliable if the cover would open freely.

-Very important issue - batteries have to be removed every time they need to be charged, which places great strain on the plastic battery cover that would eventually break with extensive use. Cameras that enable batteries to be charged without removing them, greatly exceed the durability in the long period of use.

-Plastic tripod thread, less durable compared to metal ones.

Despite all the listed cons, this is a very modern camera with superior image quality and outstanding set of features and controls. I am very pleased with PowerShot A60 so far and would not hesitate to recommend it to many photo enthusiasts.

-The batteries: I took 3 pics WITH flash, then the "Low Battery" indicator appeared.
-The flash: If you don't use flash when taking pics, their quality would be average.
-Shaking: Try to keep your hand still when taking pics, otherwise, you'll get the blurriest pics EVER. Even with flash.

Im searching for rechargeable batteries, but i cant find any now. And im totally broke. So im gonna wait a while.

Hoping this review would help!

If this doesn't happen to you, then you'll probably be very happy with this camera. If it does, then don't expect them to honor the warranty. In my case, they wanted to charge me $105.00 to fix it, claiming there was "impact damage" to the camera (there was no impact). What's really annoying is that, even in this day and age, the only way to contact the service facility is to phone, wait on hold for 15 minutes, then have to leave a voice mail that they promise to "promptly" return. I left 3, they returned one (2 business days later) and left me a voice mail. My letter to company headquarters has been totally ignored for over a month. Apparently, they're just going to keep my camera unless we send them money. Can you believe that you can't even e-mail a tech company like Canon?

I have owned Canon cameras for over 30 years and thought their workmanship was superb. I will never buy one again due to this shabby, shabby customer service. Good luck.

There are a lot of 2MP cameras out there, as it's a perfect size for web, email and the 4x6 prints that are a standard for familay snapshots. It's a very competitive area pricewise, too. The A60 caught my for a number of reasons, not the least of which was my previous good expreience with my Canon G2:

1. It takes AA batteries. Dedicated rechargeables are expensive, and there's no assurance you'll be able to get replacements a few years down the line. But rechargeable AAs are common and inexpensive.

2. Manual controls. The A60 has nearly the same range of manual controls as my G2 or the newer G5. About the only thing it doesn't have is provision for off-camera flash.

3. Video. It'll take video clips in a choice of resolutions

4. Availability of underwater housing. You can get an underwater housing for almost all the Canons (the exception being, oddly enough, the semi-pro G series). I'm not a diver, but I do like to take cameras out kayaking and hiking in all sorts of weather. Until now I've used a Nikonos or *very* carefull taken my digital camera out of its protective case to take a few quick shots.

5. Image quality. Canon has consistently been one of the top names for digital image quality, along with Nikon, Fuji and (to a lesser extent) Minolta.

6. Ergonomics: It fits the hand nicely, with all the controls right where you need them. The viewfinder is sharp and clear.

6. Price. All this comes at a price that is amazingly low when compared to the competition.

In summary: An excellent value with excellent image quality and excellent ergonomics that will handle all the imaging needs of most people. You really can't go wrong buying one.

-2 megapixels? Not a problem. I've already snapped quite a few pictures, and I'm pretty pleased with the quality. As stated, our family's other digital is 3megs, and there's not much difference. I'm keeping it in highest resolution (1600x1200 Superfine), and at this resolution a 64 meg card will hold 61 pictures- which is more than I'm going to need at one time. Not to mention the camera itself comes with a spare 16meg card if you haven't gotten one for it. On our refridgerator we have word magnets (not much larger print than the text you're reading). I took a picture from across my kitchen and was able to read them off the image (note that this was in max quality). Unless you want to blow up portions of images or print off wall-size posters... this camera seems to have enough quality for most applications. If you're comparing cameras and the difference between numbers can save you some money, go with this one.

-Software: With a few exceptions, it can be said that digital imaging devices tend to come with horrible software. For someone like me who has a little knowledge of photo editing, most all image programs perform the one necessary task- getting images off the camera and onto the computer. I personally probably won't even try the onboard software since I already have a means to edit and share my photos. If you really haven't ever edited photos before, then using the prepackaged software might be your only choice. And if you're a very casual user, the onboard software is probably going to do everything you need it to do. But if you have any software at all that you enjoy using for editing photos, it probably has an Import feature to get your pictures for you. Stick to that.

-Overall saisfaction: All I was looking for was a replacement for the countless instant cameras I've gone through with my fiancee. What I got was a smart little camera that's more than worth what you pay. The assortment of features also makes it obvious that there's plenty of room to grow if you ever want to learn the finer arts of adjusting your pictures. With the excellent price, relatively simple startup, and overall quality, this camera is definately perfect for a beginner- while still having a little room for the more advanced photographer.

Here were my main areas of concern while I was trying to decide on whether to buy this camera (they'll probably sound familiar) and how my actual experience stacked up against my concerns:

1. "Low" resolution of 2 Megapixels:

Unless you plan to blow your shots up to poster-size, 2MP is ideal. Don't get caught up in the "my MP is bigger than yours" race, as another reviewer said 2MP is the sweet spot for photos. Just leave the camera at its max settings and it's perfect, the file size is reasonable yet you'll still get every amazing detail. For example, I took a shot of my cat and you can see every hair and every whisker, even a little bit of "sleepy stuff" in the corner of her eye since she had just woken up from her nap. And this was just the third shot I took after removing it from the box. Yes, it's that good.

2. "Not enough zoom":

I'll admit, this was a huge issue for me. I was bound and determined that i wanted a camera with a higher zoom capability, like one of the Olympus 10x models. But actually having gotten a chance to use it, i've found the zoom capability, while nice, isn't the holy grail I thought it would be. Certainly not enough to spend a couple hundred dollars more to get.

3. Size -

The photos make the camera look tiny. I thought it might be better to get a bigger camera with big Tonka-toy buttons and that it would be easier to handle. Don't worry, the camera feels great in my hands, and i'm over six feet with big stubby fingers. I'm sure it will fit your hands just fine as well.

4. Other competing models in the Canon line:

This was another problem area. The A-series and G-series cameras all seem so good, that i wanted badly to get one of the more fully-featured (and expensive) models like the A80 or G5 to make sure i wasn't missing out on anything. And looking back now, most of the features I thought would make a huge difference don't seem to matter now. What seems important to you now when you're trying to make a buying decision probably won't be when you're actually out there using the camera. Out in the field, you'll want something which is relatively straight-forward and not tediously complex, but flexible enough to change a setting if absolutely necessary. This camera offers exactly that.

Trust me, when you're out in a picture taking environment, you're not going to be telling yourself (or wanting to tell your photo subjects), "hold on for a couple minutes while I put on the wide-angle lens."

5. Controls and the learning curve:

For a novice, the controls look a bit intimidating. And they can be, if you don't read the manual at all or spend any time going through the settings. But thankfully, the camera controls are well set-up, intuitive, and easy to learn. Yes, you can start shooting straight out of the box, but if you spend as little as 15-30 minutes reading how to operate the controls before you begin, it'll be well-worth your time. That won't be enough to learn everything the camera can do, but is enough to get you started on the right foot, and will put you weeks or months ahead of the game. I spent about 20 minutes learning about my camera after I got it, and my first pictures already looked better than the ones my father takes with his Canon G5 that he's owned nearly a year but never bothered to read the manual for.

THE BAD:

Shutter lag is perhaps my biggest gripe. Depressing the shutter fire button half-way focuses the camera, then depressing it the rest of the way fires the shutter. There's a brief but noticeable lag between depressing the button and the photo being taken, perhaps a half-second or so. Not a huge issue, but sometimes annoying, and can definitely get frustrating if you're trying to get just the right shot of a non-cooperative subject. Like with my cat, I'd wait for the exact moment when she was looking at me, I'd press the button, and the lag meant that she was no longer looking at the camera when the photo actually gets captured. I'm sure it would be more of the same if you were trying to take photos of an infant or child. Not a deal-breaker, but it can make for some frustration.

Inserting batteries in the dark can be a pain, unless you have memorized the pattern for which batteries go in which direction. Again, not a huge issue, but can be frustrating.

CONCLUSION:

If you're trying to decide between the A60 and either another manufacturer's offering or another Canon A-series, get this camera. This is a better camera than the competing Nikon, etc. and if you're thinking you'll need the additional features or MP of a more expensive model, you likely won't. If you did, you'd know that already and wouldn't be looking at this camera. So save your money and get this instead, it will MORE than meet and surpass your needs. You'll be very happy you did. I already have my Dad thinking she should switch cameras with me, and considering his costs about triple what mine did, that tells you that this little gem is a winner.

I am a long-time Canon SLR user, yes my SLR is 24 years old, I am still putting my foot in the water as far as digicams are concerned. I am also, unfortunately, on a very tight budget, and this is my third digital camera. I wanted to use the camera to get pics for my website, so I would reduce them to 800x600 anyway, so I figure a 2MB should be OK. The main reason for getting a 3MB camera is that you can crop the results. I was a bit worried about the long time it takes to take a picture (according to the serious reviews), but in fact I did not find this to be a problem. I am not into action photography, but for those of you who are, the A70 is faster.

Pros:
Full of features (P, Tv, Av, M etc, etc), even has an output to the TV. The manual does not explain these features, so I tended to stick with program mode.
Not too small and the controls are nice, it does take 4 batteries, but that is OK with me.
Five zone focussing system, impressed by that.
AF assist meaning that you can focus in the dark, loved that
Good colour rendition, nice that. Exposure was perfect.
View finder zooms, this is important for composing an image in full sun because the LCD monitor is hard to see with the sun behind you.
Good battery life, I got 175 shots with alkalines, the current rechargeable NI-MH batteries will give you at least twice that.
Lens is covered up when camera switch off, important to keep the dust out.
Takes nice indoor flash pics, as long as the autofocus system grabs hold of the subject you get fantastic shots, if it does not be prepared for an out of focus shot. On average 4 out of five flash shots were very good.
Uses compact flash memory which is cheap (you need a 64 or 128 MB card)
A 64MB card will take 60 pics in superfine and 120 in fine mode at 1600x1200
Can stitch pictures together to get a panorama shot.
As a SLR user there was a reassuring 'click' when it takes a picture.
There are wide-angle and zoom accessories, I like landscape photography.

Cons:
Images could not pick up the detail of difficult subjects like a leafless tree in winter or berries on a bush or tiles on a roof. This was using ISO 50 and superfine mode on a sunny winter day.
Lens only goes to F8 which means that using shutter speed priority a bit difficult.
Cannot focus easily on a bush (probably the same on most AF cameras).
I knew the image processing software was [bad], but I use Thumbs Plus software, so I do not care.

For the money, you get a lot of bang for the buck. I was pleased at the indoor shots using flash, my dad came out great and so did the books in my bookcase (these were stunning, better than my SLR). But, I was quite disappointed at the lack of detail in some difficult outdoor subjects, and this is where the rubber hits the road. Unfortunately, I cannot compare it to other digicams (Olympus C-350, Sony DSC-P72), so I do not know whether the lack of detail is due to the lens or the sensor, I suspect the former.

The bottom line for me is that this cheap digicam produces better pictures for my website than my SLR, because by the time I have converted film or slides to jpg files, I lose so much quality, that I am better off with a cheap digicam.
Overall, it is amazing value for money and Amazon was the cheapest, but you know that anyway.

Digital cameras do not do miracles, you still need good lighting to get good results. ...

I used 2000 nimh rechargeble battery and would you believe that it lasted till about 890 shots with LCD on. !!!!! Oh my that is great as compared to my old A100 which only lasted till 200 shots with LCD on.

Thats all!!!

This camera has optional shutter speeds of up to 15 seconds, which I like to use with streams and other pictures involving water. The speed has its highest shutter speed at 1/2000 of a second, which I haven't yet had success with, but will have fun playing with (it needs to be really bright for this). I haven't yet played with the aperture, but it seems like it will be fun to play with as well.

If you are wondering if you need 3 MP (A70), consider what you want to do with the pictures. I would recommend a 3 MP if you want to do some cropping or want to blow up pictures greater than 5x7. I simply use my A60 just for 4x6 and looking at pictures on my computer, which it does an excellent job of.

I would recommend getting either a 128 or a 256 Mb compactflash card (cards used in these cameras) in addition to this camera (runs between $40 and $70), because the camera only comes with a 16 Mb card, which holds about 15-20 pictures. I personally prefer Lexar's 12x or higher cards. Get rechargable batteries!!! Amazon's prices seems to be the cheapest for both cameras and compactflash cards (or within a couple bucks of other places).

I would highly recommend either the Powershot A60 or A70 to anyone that wants a digital camera because of the versatility offered.

This camera is reliable, it has elaborate design, not bad LCD display. All pictures I store in maximum resolution and minimal compression. It is nice that this camera "super fine" compression quality (minimal compression) produce no visible JPEG artifacts, almost like TIFF.

Weaknesses of this camera: The quality of pictures not good enough. Sunny pictures are really good. But I think any camera in this price-range will have similar color noise. Only ISO 50 and 100 are suitable, other modes produce noisy pictures. I never use AUTO mode. Instead I predefined P-mode with my favorite settings or Av-mode. Along the edges pictures sometimes are a little bit blackouted. But this drawback is typical for compact camera designs. Quality of video mode is average (both video and sound suck). And as already was mentioned, the battery life indicator is absolutely stupid. After it becomes blinking you can take only 2-3 pictures. There is no way to forecast and plan recharge. Canon, what happened?! May first cell phone had much more informative indicator for the same type of acc batteries. Shame on you!

It upset me to learn that you cannot upload any files on this camera, unlike Sony and many other cameras. Software (for me as software developer) is not perfect too: it is good-looking but not very handy and intuitive. At least for windows user. I admit it is more friendly to Mac users. I think software is not a strong point of Canon. Its a pity, seems like they are trying to save on software.

Summary. This is not bad camera for my 270$ spent on it. I like that it has manual controls (although I rare use this feature) and use of CompactFlash memory. For point-and-shoot men and others who dosn't consider these as advantages I recommend to consider other brands. Sony P72 and newer clones may fit you better.

This years model (the A60) has a lower price and bigger memory card than The model I got last year (A40) so to me its more of a good thing for less.

That aside there are some things that I recomend you buy to go with this camera. First is rechargable batteries. You get more time out of them than alkilyne batteries and they are cheaper in the long run. Buy two sets if you plan to take a lot of pics.
Second is a larger capicity memory card, 16Mb will not hold that many photos at high res. I reecomend a 128Mb card or 256Mb card.
Also get a nice camera bag to keep your camera, batteris and memory cards in. I got a bag that hold my battery charger too, nice if you go away for more than a few days the charger is handy if needed.

I bought 8 NIMH-rechargeable batteries plus charger as well as an AC-adapter. ( I shouldn't have bought the AC-adapter; the rechargeable long-life NIMH batteries are sufficient.) I also bought a Simpletech 128MB CF card since the CF card that came with the camera was good only for a handful of shots. The 128MB-CF card will go a long way since I've started taking 1-megapixel pictures. [ 1MP pictures are easier to send via email] I've also used the picture "editor" software for cropping and to reduce red-eye; learning how to do these things was easy.

I am extremely pleased and I highly recommend the Canon A60. Picture-quality is superb; the menu system is straightforward and user-friendly. The more-commonly used options are easy to remember and use and result in high-quality pictures. Moreover, there is more to the camera (macro-photography, movies, "stitching" for panoramic shots) to challenge one's creative photography cravings. [ But do remember: it is necessary and most useful to read the well-written manual. ]

The truth is I loved the camera, but if you figure that at some point in the camera's lifetime that you might drop it, I would either look elsewhere or keep your fingers crossed.

- Minimum of 2 million pixels,
- At least 3 * optical zoom,
- Perferably made by one of the long-time camera makers (For better lens quality).

To that, I added a few requirements of my own:

- Should look good, (Hey. I'm a sucker for appearance when it comes to technology)
- Some settings I can play around with, (I want to be able to influence diaphragma settings, flash usage, shutter times, etc)
- It should have the feel of a regular camera (I want to FEEL I'm using a camera, rather than some light-weight plastic box)
- It should be afordable.

After all of these, and reading some reviews and recommendations from friends, I decided I wanted a Canon. While looking at a number of cameras, I finally decided on the A60.

I figured 2 million pixels would be enough, considering I don't intend on enhancing the pictures at all. Just regular size pictures would do perfectly fine for me. The camera also allows me to control the technical settings like the diaphragm, shutter time, etc. And it actually fellt like a real camera.

All in all, the camera filled all the criteria I mentioned above, so it seemed like an obvious choice.

The camera works like a charm. The quality of the pictures is absolutely brilliant, and the usb-cable supplied with it enables you to quickly download the pictures from the memory card onto your computer. I haven't tested the software to alter pictures yet, but I'm convinced it will do whatever it promises.

The only disadvantages I could find was that the 16 MB CF card is too limited for storage. And the accessories are expensive as hell. But, that does not affect the working of the camera, so I have no reason to complain really.

All in all, argueable the best camera for your money in it's price range.

Next I got the Nikon 2100. A lot better than the Oly520z. Smaller and looks like really techie. It is nice because of the size, really pocketsize although a little chunky. But still, I was not impressed on action photos. I do not know whether the size of the lenses has something to do with (Olympus has 2.8A max while Nikon has a 2.6A max) but both have very puny lenses which I suspect how much light can get in into it.

These cameras both use only 2 AA which what I wanted for portability. But my conclusion is, there is no camera around that uses only 2 batteries to have enough flash power to make a great shots.

So, I settled with the 4-battery Canon A60. Although I will not compare the images taken with my Olympus C3040 (C3040 has a fast 1.8A lens), the results are far, far superior than Oly 520z and Nikon 2100. For the money, it is the best at that level. The features are more than I expected for this price. The lens is bigger, flash is more powerful, movie has audio, etc.

This came with a 16MB CF card which is kind of useless I think. I bought a 256MB CF card at the same time I bought the camera and have been using it. We took a short vacation and I was able to take several video clips and almost two hundred photos without downloading. Most of these were at the highest resolution so I would recommend a higher capacity CF card. I also use the rechargeable NMh batteries instead of alkalines. I get more time out of these and are shorter in the long term than replacing alkalines all of the time.

So far I am very, very pleased with this product and would recommend it to anyone. My friend who also bought this owns a top of the line EOS digital SLR that cost many $$$$ more and is very pleased and satisfied with this. It takes great photos yet doesn't cost so much that your afraid to take it out and use it.

How well does it work? I've owned mine for over a month and have nothing but excellent results. My previous digicam (a Canon S10) was very good, but the A60 produces richer color photos and allows me to gain control over the critical features of the camera for special shooting conditions. Most folks don't realize that 2-megapixel is a sweet-spot in digital camera performance: it's the perfect resolution for printing up to 8x10 and the file sizes are small enough to allow rapid shooting without waiting for images to write to the Compactflash card. And the Canon lens is superb. Never underestimate the quality of the lens to make your photos great. There are plenty of higher megapixel cameras with so-so lenses that produce poor photos in comparison to a lower megapixel model with quality optics.

Try the A60 and you'll keep it. Of course, you can wait a few months for all the other manufacturers to introduce their full-featured low-cost cameras, but why reward them for napping? Choose the A60 as a way of thanking Canon for being the first to give us pro-sumer features at an entry-level price.

I recently took it on a vacation with me for 2 weeks, and with a battery charger, a 128 MB CF card, and the camera, I was taking pictures the whole time.

If you are planning to take pictures for fun, this is one of the best cameras out there, but if you want to use it professionally, you might be a little better off with a camera with more megapixels.

Used most of the various camera modes. It takes excellant outdoor scenic/ panoramic views in bright and low light conditions. Indoor photo's so-so, red eye reduction does not appear to work, wedding pictures were a disappointment because of this.

Viewfinder is not very accurate, pictures tend to have much larger field of view than what appears in viewfinder, especially at top of picture, causes difficulty composing picture.

Zoom mechanism is not very smooth, somewhat jerky & diffciult to get just the right composition.

The A60 is a great little camera with better than expected results. I use it at it's maximum resolution and it's worked fabulous. Images come out sharp, better than my friend's SLR photos. Color quality and contrast seem to depend on where you have the prints 'developed'. I have two sets of the same images that were done by different places and they look almost like different photos. The camera works great in most lights (from bright sunlight to restaurant dim) and when I enlarged them the images did not get grainy at all. Plus there's that added bonus of deleting anything you don't like. I think my developer nearly had a heart attack when I told him I wanted all 135 images b/c I had already deleted the garbage. The camera also will not take an out of focus image... it either requires you to zoom out or to move a few steps. This can be a pain but it keeps you from getting blurry images. Even action shots come out sharp.

The LCD screen is too small and in bright light (I was on a beach) it's totally useless. Plus it deceptively makes your image seem farther away than it really is...a nice surprise when you get your prints back and they're MUCH closer. The only problem that -really- bothered me (which is why I give it 4 of 5 stars) was that there is a delay (enough for someone to walk in your frame or your subject to move) between when you press the shutter and when the camera actually captures the image. Not a problem if you're taking photos of still things but can be a really issue when you're taking active shots.

One recommendation is to buy a larger compact flash than what's included with the camera, especially if you're like me and use the highest resolution. I bought two 128MB Viking cards (1 was a back up) and have had no problems and LOTS of storage space (I think 1 card would give around 200 images). It's well worth the extra money.

The Goods
-Excellent photo quality. I've owned several digital cameras and this one by far has the best image quality.

-Low price. I think it's the best camera on the market under $300!

-Great software, easy to install and use!

-Great battery power!

The Not So Good
-Video output is not the greatest. Diehard video freaks will want a video cam instead.

-Display could be a tad larger.

-Accessories are pricey!

Overall, I'd highly recommend this camera. The display is bright, crisp and clear and so are the photos. What more could you ask for?