Canon An oldie but a goodie - Powershot A630

wolfie

Veteran
Had a bit of money and saw this camera (mint condition) in a second hand shop for a bargin price and a 4 week guarantee - so I bought it. This must be my 5th o 6th powershot, and they have all been good. I took it along to a 21st party and it was a pleasant relief to shoot some casual pictures after the bulk of the DSLR and a hammer-flash grip.
Hope to get the CDHK onto it soon so I can shoot raw files to extract the maximum benefit.
Enjoying the tilt-swivel LCD, great macro facility and, after using just a DSLR for months, the luxury of a power zoom at my finger tip - something a fixed lens compact will always have over interchangeable lens cameras!
Cant afford an M4/3 yet, and it surprising to think the A630 is very close to the body size of an Olympus E-PL1, and definitely bigger than a Sony NEX. Cheaper than a Fuji X100!
Will post some pics soon ...
 
Cool find, wolfie - and please don't keep us hanging too long on those photos! Here's a link to the Canon A630, for inquiring minds. I have a feeling that Mayank may have one of these powershots in his stable.

Canon does make great compact cameras. We have two elphs in our family. One is pure P&S, while the other does offer controls...however for me its screen is too small (aging eyes). I've never had a Powershot...hmm...;)
 
BBW, you are right (well almost) in the sense that I shot with a Canon PowerShot A640 a lot and even now regret selling it. Two camera dealers in New Delhi (India) are right now selling brand new A630 and A570 IS at very good prices and even giving one year warranty with them but I seem to have developed some superhuman strength and not am buying them :D

Wolfie, A630 has awesome reviews on the net. Make sure you enable CHDK to shoot in DNG format and I am sure the results would be outstanding! There are three small issues with the camera, imho: 1. 3rd party softwares like Photoshop do not show A630s ISO values, 2. it demonstrates prominent vignetting sometimes (which can easily be fixed in PP) and 3. No Image Stabilisation. However, the IQ alone makes the camera totally worth it.
 
Here are some of my first shots with the A630. All but one at base ISO ( 80) and reduced to 1024 for uploading, so not a pixel peeping exercise. Overall I'm happy with the image quality -especially the macros in good light. Realise now how much the OIS in the G10/ 12 was responsible for my macro success in poor light!

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and an indoor shoot at 400 iso:
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My little old A520 lasted me two years in the dust of Albania and I got some great pictures with it. It still works but the lens cover needs a little manual assistance to open. It was my first digital camera.

I think I read somewhere that the newest A series are a little 'dumbed down' compared to the older models. If so it's a shame. These were great cameras to learn digital photography on.
 
Some photos of other photographers at recent birthday party ...

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They're starting younger
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I still have my A620. It's sitting in a box because I sort of outgrew it. But the A620 still takes beautiful photos. These were taken years ago at the Calgary Zoo.

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