Canon PowerShot A490

by Mashall Khattak
(Islamabad, Pakistan)

I am extremely enthusiastic about photography, and quite expert as well, people like and admire pictures I take. I am writing this review about the Canon PowerShot A490. Last Thursday I bought the Canon PowerShot A490 for 117$ from Islamabad, Capital of Pakistan. It's a really nice camera for those who want excellent photo quality and a nice video mode on a tight budget.

The specifications of this camera are :-
1) 10.0 Mega Pixels.
2) 3.3x Optical Zoom ( 4x Digital ).
3) 2.5” inch LCD. ( 115,000 Pixels )
4) Digic III Processor.
5) Face Detection ( Upto 5 faces ).
6) Macro as close as 1cm.
7) Video Mode 640*480 with 30 FPS.
8) Powered by 2 AA Batteries.
9) SD/SDHC, MMC/MMC Plus and HC MMC Plus Card for storing Pictures and Video.
10) Smart Auto Mode ( Fully Automatic ).

The pictures taken by the Canon PowerShot A490 were sharp, good exposed and well coloured. The Smart Auto Mode was not very good, So I will advise you to use scene modes.

The camera has 11 scene modes:-
1) Portrait (For Taking Picture of a Person).
2) Night Snapshot (Taking picture of landscape in Night).
3) Kids and Pets (Camera Focuses Fastly).
4) Indoor (For Shooting inside house)
5) Low Light (Shoots only in 1600*1200),
6) Beach.

7) Foilage (Enhances greenery, use when shooting trees).
8) Snow.
9) Sunset.
10) Fireworks
11) Long Shutter (At Night for very dark, Tri-Pod needed) .

I recommend you to use scene modes for those who have little experience with Photography, because Smart Auto Mode doesn't produce good results.

The Canon PowerShot A490 powers up in 2.2 seconds. Shooting performance is a little slow. Not always, but certain times when you press the shutter button, the camera will take a picture about 0.4 or 0.5 seconds later. This is a bit annoying about this camera.

It's video quality is quite good for a digital camera of this price. Face Detection makes sure that faces are in focus and well exposed.

Video can be recorded until the memory card runs out or duration reaches 1 hour. Still Images are in .jpeg format and video in .avi format. ISO Speeds available are 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200. Self timer available for 2 seconds, 10 seconds or custom time. Flash Modes are Auto, Red Eye and Slow Syncro Flash Mode.

It's Weight is 135g. Battery life is not very good though. Takes ~150 shots on Alkaline and ~400 shots on NI-MH batteries.

Overall I can say that this camera is for those who want excellent quality and good video on a tight budget.