Time for a New Cam

Prior to last weekend's birthday party, my wife was panicking. Our trusty old Canon PowerShot A510 was showing signs of its age. We bought it from Amazon back in 2005. It had served us well in the last 4 years. A few days before the weekend it started getting flaky on us. You know how most digital cameras have a shoot and preview buttons? Well the one on our camera happens to be a slider switch that you thumb up to shoot and thumb down to check the saved pics. For some odd reason our cam would randomly switch to preview mode every now and then. So random that at times I couldn't get to shoot a single pic. It would stay at shooting mode for half a sec then go to preview. At times, I could well take 3-5 pictures before it started getting doing that again.

So the choice was to have it checked and repaired or buy a new one. I've sort of convinced my wife to approve of that, in principle. No commitment yet, but at least she has agreed to replacing it. Now comes the tough part. Being the geek that I am, I started browsing around for likely replacements.

My first stop was Canon Philippines. I wanted to stick with Canon, I really liked how they've built their cameras. Before going digital, we had an Olympus film camera. My sister-in-law had a Canon SLR. The comparison couldn't be farther. I had a chance to use it a few times, and boy was I hooked on Canon. Add to that the fact that the Powershot series has diversified over the last few years that the line already includes everything from the most basic point-and-shoots to the more advanced short-of-being-a-DSLR models.

So off I went and found three options at 3 different price points. A basic point-and-shoot for around 8,000 pesos, the successor to the Canon PowerShot A510 priced around 12,000 pesos and the latest cheapest DiG!C4-equipped cam. I would have jumped at a chance to own a more expensive PowerShot SX20IS, but I have more immediate financial priorities. I have to strike a balance between a camera that'll serve me as long as the PowerShot A510 did at the best possible price.

So the three models I was choosing from were the PowerShot A480 10 MP with 3.3x Optical Zoom, the PowerShot A590IS 8MP with 4x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and the PowerShot A1100IS 12.1 MP with 4x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom. Prices between the US and Philippines were almost the same, except for the A1100IS. Surprisingly, the A1100IS is sold in the US at roughly half of it's price in the Philippines.

Each of the three have their unique advantages. The PowerShot A480PowerShot has the best price, listed around US$100 in most online stores. And at 10 MP, has a lot of resolution. The A590IS has same form factor as the PowerShot A510, with a comfortable grip, Image Stabilization and manual controls that one can fidget with. Unfortunately, you can only push it to 8MP max. It's continuous shooting clocks in at only 1.4 shots per second. The movie mode FPS is a whole third slower than the A1100IS.

Compared to the 12.1 MP count on the PowerShot A1100IS, you'd be missing a lot. The A1100IS can also take 2 shots per second in continous shooting mode and can take closer macro shots than the A590IS. It's equipped with the DiG!C4 processor, which should span a few years before it's considered obsolete. But here's the best part. If you look at online retailers, the A1100IS is cheaper than the A590IS. So if I can just get someone I know in the US to buy this for me, then I'd be getting the best camera for our needs. Best price-performance ratio, if you asked me.


UPDATE:  I ended up buying a Powershot SX120 IS after reading all the reviews and seeing the online price (almost half the local prices).  >>>