Customer Reviews

Canon PowerShot A650IS 12.1MP Digital Camera with 6x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom

5 star:		(63)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I'm a long-standing fan of A-series Canons. I started with the A40, went A80, A95, A620, A640, and now this A650 - yes, it's out there, earlier than expected. They all have excelled in picture quality, but each has brought something new to the game. Most improvements between top end models were notable but fairly marginal (ISO increase, bigger screen or MP). My most recent move from the A620 to A640 was one of the smallest. The A640 had higher megapixels than the A620 and a bigger LCD but offered little else besides a black case. Then they went and stuck the SD card in behind the battery door -- a real bummer continued into the A650.

The A650, though, is a major reboot for the series. Improvements from the A640: 12MP; image stabilization; a 6x lens that's much improved from any previous A series glass; a higher resolution LCD that's the same size as the old A640 but produces much better quality images; a distance sensing flash that won't blow out subjects close to the camera. This works better than manual flash level method when out of Auto in old A640; there are the DIGIC III improvements: red eye removal tool, face sensor, better shot-to-shot speed, longer battery life; a higher ISO 1600 is there and a 3200 (in lower resolution) plus, in my experience, less noise in the lower ISOs when comparing it to the A640 ISO to ISO; a better viewfinder; a new interface for picture playback shows the grid images but slightly enlarges the chosen picture over the tic-tac-toe -- a nice improvement. Finally, there's a focus check that pulls in the focal box image for quick perusal (still love to have a live histogram), and an "auto" ISO that'll bump up the ISO to prevent blurring -- this works, but I prefer to choose (it's selectable off/on). That's a big pile of improvements from one camera to the next. The 6X G-series lens and image stabilization are enough to make the jump but packing in all the rest makes this a worthy move for A640 users.

What else? They've changed the button layout a bit, adding a direct ISO button on the back -- nice. They've also added a much-needed gauge for zoom/wide. You can finally see where you are in the zoom range -- very nice and needed. The viewfinder has an expanded reach that's an improvement over the A640 as well, though I rarely compose with the viewfinder since you are still getting 80% or so of the final image. This camera also brings a new sensor, bigger than the A640. This is a relief, since the print size for a jump from 10-12 wouldn't be huge. But squeezing more MP out of the previous sensor would have brought noise. Canon did things one better and upped the size of the sensor and the pictures really sing for the improvement.

It maintains the usual A-series pluses: runs on AA batteries (four of them - best for the quickest flash recharge), has easy capacity for add-on lenses for telephoto and wide, plus underwater cases, and has the same wonderful flip out screen of the top-end A series cameras (this time with a much needed pixel count increase -- there's much better resolution here). Also the usual full manual control, the many shooting and `scene' modes (21 of them), and a custom slot for your favorite settings are still there. So far, it seems perfectly in line with the A series consistent reputation for image quality.

I did feel the A640 delivered a more contrasty image than the A620. This new A650 produces images more in line with the A620, they feel richer and I feel like the mid-tones are brighter than with the A640 so they don't have the same contrasty out of camera quality of the A640.

What's the downside? Well, really only one major caveat here: The build quality. The A620 was a solid machine. The A640 was nice as well, the black case felt good in the hands. The A650 takes a step back here. The design, with the split silver/black casing already looks cheaper than the old A640. But then, flip the zoom button and you can feel it. The lever is lighter and makes a sort of unsatisfying clicking. It doesn't say "quality." And when the camera body is in your hands, it feels cheaper. It weighs a few ounces more than its predecessor does but it's a larger camera. Instead of a 2 oz. bump, you'd expect five or six based on size alone. They obviously didn't skimp on the glass (lens) and the features are well, you'd be hard press to want for anything (aside from RAW support) here. But the body feels truly plastic. Flip the switch on the A640 that moves you from playback to record and do the same on the newly redesigned A650 and you can feel it. The A650 switch feels light and cheap.

In addition, and no surprise, there's no native RAW support. The lack of RAW may be a non-issue eventually, as free hacked firmware is available (and likely warranty killing) to get DIGIC II cameras to do RAW. DIGIC III is likely right around the corner. But Canon does so well in the lower ISOs that you get a great image "in camera." And this new machine has dialed back the NR so that there's more detail in the higher ISOs. I can't imagine using ISO3200 (they've dubbed it 'cell phone') but the usability of ISO 800 is remarkable. This is from someone who hates noise and tends to stick with ISO80 whenever possible. It's not an F-series Fuji in the low light, but in some ways, it's better. There's more detail and depth than the Fuji with a bit more noise. But no Fuji has the picture quality at lower ISOs in normal light like a Canon. This A-series takes the best images yet from any A-series camera -- and at 12mp! All the feature improvements are very, very welcome (big zoom and IS) but the fantastic image quality is really the bottom line.

The first reviewer did such a fantastic job reviewing this camera there is little more I can add.

As a professional photographer, I've owned a lot of cameras. I still have and shoot medium and large format film but in the smaller 35mm size, I now shoot nearly 100% digital. For my small digitals, I own several of the G-series and a couple of the A-Series PowerShot cameras, including the A710IS. It's a very, very good camera but I did not like the flash, battery life, or the non-flip LCD viewer.

Canon fixed the flash, doubled the batteries, and put the flip-LCD in! Also, the new SD-SDHC cards are supported. The San Disc 4GB Extreme III with the card reader is the perfect flash memory card for it too.

This is, by a wide margin, the best "pocketable" camera available on the market today at any price. The words "Landmark Product" come to mind.

If the nearly $400 takes your breath away, save up for it and wait until the price drops a bit.

For those like me on the perpetual upgrade treadmill spending $400-$700 every year for the incremental features we need and want, we've finally reached that illusive destination!

I wanted the tilt/swivel LCD of the A640 but knew that model must soon be upgraded. I waited, and as soon as this A650 came out, I bought it. My recent experience is mostly with a Nikon D50 SLR (and before that, many generations of film SLRs). This purchase is our "small" camera, less obtrusive than the big black Nikon, easier to tote on a casual walk, less obvious in a social occasion, easier to smuggle into places where photography is "not permitted."

The A650 has exceeded my expectations in many ways. Looking at their images at full resolution on a calibrated monitor, there are only slight differences between the Nikon and the A650: mainly, the A650 betrays a slight blue fringing of high-contrast details in the extreme edges of the frame. This most likely betrays the smaller, cheaper lens design (the lens on the Nikon cost more than the A60 camera!). Aside from this flaw, only noticeable under extreme enlargement, I don't see any difference in sharpness, saturation, or accuracy of color.

Although it is small alongside an SLR with zoom lens, the A650 is a chunky handful compared to tiny point-and-shooters from, e.g., Panasonic. It won't fit in a shirt pocket unless you wear a lumberjack's shirt, but it is small enough to get into the hip pocket of my Levi 501's, or into the slash pocket of a windbreaker. Part of the bulk is because it uses 4xAA batteries instead of some small, proprietary battery. This is a huge plus in my view: batteries are available everywhere, and I already have a charger and a box of rechargeable AAs.

The menus are clear. The controls are like other Canon Powershot models, so would be familiar to Canon owners. Coming from a different brand, I had to get used to the various buttons, which was not difficult, a testimony to the sensible design of the Canon. Most common options are available from a single "FUNC SET" button that pops up a terse menu on the LCD. All the key actions are ready to hand: deleting the most recent image, awkward with some cameras, is quick and easy; setting Macro/Normal/Manual focus, or Flash On/Auto/Off, is also quick.

The tilting, swivelling LCD is a great feature! You can store it face-in, so it won't get scratched in a pocket or glovebox. You can turn it completely around to compose a picture of yourself. You can turn it face-down so you can hold the camera high over your head and compose a shot over a crowd, or turn it face-up so you can hold the camera at your side and take stealth shots walking down the street. The LCD is bright, but on a sunny day you must still shade it to read it.

This camera even does very decent video! It will put 15 minutes of 640x480/30fps video on a 2GB chip. Recently I needed to record a lot more than that, and the A650 was the only camcorder handy, so I set it to do 320x240/30fps. That format allowed over 45 minutes of recording on a 2GB chip. Using nothing but the naked A650 (no tripod, no external mic) I got acceptable amateur video of a family reunion dinner, capturing speeches and interviews clearly. Using Apple's iMovie and iDVD, I was able to mail out DVDs of the occasion to participants in a few days. The A650 would certainly serve any parent wanting to capture a school play or dance recital.

Good image quality, convenient controls, video ability, an LCD that does the hula -- what's not to like? Well, there are a few minor things to complain about.

One, the optical viewfinder is near-useless, a disappointment to me as I am used to composing in the optical finder of an SLR. There's no picture info in the finder. It crops a good 10% from the actual image. The barrel of the lens protrudes into the finder image at some zoom ratios. The LCD is the only practical way to compose. The finder is a barely-useful fallback when the ambient light is so high the LCD is unreadable.

Two, you zoom by swivelling a lever left or right, and I just can't get it straight whether I push left or right to zoom IN. And, the zoom is hard to control: after I push the lever the wrong way, I push it the other way and quickly overshoot the composition I want, and have to zoom back, jerk, jerk, jerk. There is just no comparison to rotating the zoom ring on the barrel of an SLR lens, which is a smooth and natural way to compose.

Three, a camera with this quality of image, and support for aperture- and shutter-priority as well as full manual control (all of which it has) really ought to support RAW. The "fine" mode JPGs are indeed good quality but how hard could it be to just NOT process the image data?

An irritation that the manual in fact warns about: the in-camera microphone captures every sound of your fingers on the controls. If you zoom during a video, the click-clack of the zoom lever is very audible on the soundtrack.

Finally, I have yet to test the A650 in low-light, high-ISO situations. I have hopes that the upgraded "DIGIC III" processor will do well, but can't say that it does. Other than these issues, the A650 in daily use is pleasant and comfortable. I expect to get many years and images out of it.

After several weeks and 500 photos this seems a fine technically advanced replacement for a trusty A80 which finally died. With four batteries and a flip out higher-resolution screen I much prefer it to the somewhat similar A710 (now A720) that is in my family.

While generally agreeing with all the positive things and extensive details in the reviews written before Thanksgiving, one can wish for what Canon chose not to do.

A smaller lens is not the big reason that the A650 images are not up to the quality of a big digital SLR. Camera people know one problem is the race to have very high pixel counts on the image sensor that has replaced the film. The prominent 12.1MP in the advertising.

The same sized sensor with only 6 MP instead of 12 would result in better pictures. With fewer pixels you get a bigger cell size for each pixel. A bigger cell will collect more dim light. That means a stronger signal, less noise, when you are shooting in moderate light. Less need for the camera to fuzz the lens's sharp details to conceal the speckles of noise.

If you are comfortable with the bulk of this camera that barely fits into a pants pocket, as I am, then this is a very good choice. However I bought it with a tinge of regret at what might have been. I could have had better pictures from a camera with less flashy specs. If more of us feel regret your next camera may have fewer pixels and take better pictures.
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Update August 2008, eight months and 8,000 pictures later: This is a very good camera.

Got this as the small camera when I don't want to tote my DSLR. I've had a PowerShot before...this look and feel is similar to one I got years ago.

It feels good in the hand...easy to shoot one-handed, and is good if you have bigger hands.

Menus are fairly intuitive, and buttons are there for more commonly used functions.

I used this during the day and at night. It performed well in both cases. Obviously noise at high ISOs, but where very dark, it doesn't show up as much.

I feel the construction, while not metal, is still sturdy. It should be kept in a well-padded little camera bag.

Key features are the image stabilization and high ISO, which result in more sharp pictures; also the 180 degree flip out screen, which you can use for getting yourself in the picture easier.

Issues:
Would prefer shorter option for picture review time than 2 seconds...otherwise, you have to turn off the review altogether.

The Canon a650 takes beutiful pictures. I have a high end, digital SLR as well, and while I can notice differences with larger prints, the image quality is not that far off. I would say the difference is more due to the lenses than the cameras. It is not that the lens in the a650 is bad -just that I bought expensive lenses for the SLR.

While the price for the a650 may be daunting for a point-and-shoot, please note that the a650 is internally identical to the Canon G9, which cost another $100 and cannot use AA batteries.

One caution to note, however, is that this camera is heavy and big. It weighs close to a pound with batteries and will not fit in you pocket. Before you buy, go hold the camera. I almost bought the sd950 for its smaller size, but decided that I could not relay only on rechargible batteries, which is ironic considering my SLR only uses reechargibles and I have never had problems.

I wanted this camera primarily for two features: 1) it uses ordinary AA batteries, 2) the tilt and swivel display.

I really don't like proprietary rechargeble batteries. They always seem to poop out way too soon and, as a result, I wind up carrying several of them. They also impose the burden of needing to be recharged which, in most cases, means carrying yet another gadget, the recharger.

Sometimes I just want the convenience of carrying a camera with AA cells that I can buy anywhere should the need arise.

So the A650 is very appealing to me for that reason alone.

Next big feature is the tilt and swivel screen. You can use the camera at virtually any angle, which if you're feeling creative, is a huge plus, especially if you're old like I am and not quite as supple as you were 40 years ago. The A650 makes it easy for me to get pictures of my toddler grandchild at her level, not five feet up! Used with a QwikPod or similar device, you'll have no trouble creating well composed pictures that include you, which is nice when you are travelling. No need to rely on strangers.

Those are the big features for me - the rest of this camera's assets are frosting on the cake. The image quality is excellent at lower ISO equivalents. As with all point 'n shoot cameras and many DSLRs, as you increase the speed, you increase the noise. Can't be helped.

The zoom range is adequate, though I would rather have a 28mm capability and less telephoto. I suspect, considering what Panasonic, Olympus and Nikon are doing, that a future A model may have both a wider angle at one end and a higher telephoto at the other. The one thing I hope is that they don't get rid of the optical viewfinder or, in the alternative, include an optical LCD viewer as in the new Nikon Coolpix. You can, by the way, get supplementary wide-angle and telephoto lenses.

The video capability of this camera is terrific, which was a big consideration for me. I want to use video for blogging and hobby purposes. The built-in microphone is excellent though, as you might expect, a tad too sensitive to finger noise on the camera. It also, predictably, becomes less than optimal for voice when the speaker is more than a few feet away.

Optical stabilization works well.

Shot-to-shot time feels a bit on the slow side.

The zoom control is a bit too small and zooming is a bit on the sluggish side.

Autofocus is inconsistent. It is usually tack-sharp, but sometimes it starts to hunt and is slow.

Color rendition is excellent.

Battery life with the four AAs is surprisingly good.

The camera is somewhat on the large side and the pocket you put it in had best be large. It is also a bit heavy, coming in at just under a pound.

Available controls are terrific, including full manual operation.

Overall, the A650 is a continuation of the traditionally excellent Canon A series. There are much smaller and lighter cameras available that provide many of the same features. But if you want the convenience of AA batteries, the versatility of a tilt and swivel screen (and an optical viewfinder) and manual controls, the A650 is just about the only game in town in this form factor.

Jerry

I won't go into any technical specs about this camera, previous reviewers who are far more knowledgeable have already done this.

I upgraded to this camera from a simple Nikon Coolpix, as I wanted a few more options and better picture quality and a little more performance than the basic coolpix could offer. I also didn't want to go all the way up to a bulky Digital SLR either. This camera bridges the gap between a basic camera and one for advanced users.

It's not as big/bulky as the SLR's like the rebel but it isn't a shirt pocket camera like the Elph's either.

It has plenty of features to allow you to learn how to take photo's, allowing you to experiment with some of the more manual functions and not always rely on using the old point and shoot "auto" function but for those times you need to, that option is still there to fall back on.

The photo quality is excellent and at 12.0MP you get plenty of room to crop your photo's. I would recommend a larger memory card as the one you get with it isn't good for much of anything.

This camera is also compatible with the newer SDHC cards and I put in one of the 8Gb cards whis has plenty of storage for photo's and some decent length Mpeg's.

It takes 4AA batteries but is not as much of a battery hog as I had thought it would be. The rechargeables are great to have but the new AA lithiums do last quite well under heavy use.

Another nice feature, if you are low on power you can turn off the screen (which is a beefy 2.5" variable angle by the way) and use the viewfinder...a feature other camera's have started to leave out.

With some of the other whistles and bells, face detection, Image stabilization and a 6X zoom and this is a solid purchase for the price.

All that and its still very user friendly....

I cannot really talk technical jargon, but I really like it. It won't fit a shirt pocket. It's a little bigger because this fat piece kind of juts out and its a little heavier, but it's a nice camera that takes great pix.

It takes AA batteries, which is a Godsend when your power goes and you are somewhere shooting pix. You can buy AAs anywhere. You can also buy AA rechargeables if you want. It has a nice flip out LED screen too. It's simple to take photos or movies with. The 6X optical zoom with the range of the lens really lets you get up close and personal with this camera. I am still getting to know it, but I like it. It was highly recommended to me. It is compact, just not as compact as some others. It is a little bigger than the 5 pixel Minolta I upgraded from.

Although not part of the package shown here, mine came with a photo printer that you do not need to hook to a PC, so one is available. This camera will also accept a 2 gig SD, which some cameras do not, as I understand it.

(Update: April 2008, I was at a Barry Manilow concert recently and took close up pix of him with this cam where you could see the sweat rolling down the side of his face.)

Update: Feb 2009, I was at another Barry Manilow concert (Long Island, NY). I was back a little further than usual (9th row), so there were 9 rows of heads in front of me. Not only did I take excellent close up shots but the image stabilizer helps a lot too because Barry moves almost constantly. The big flip out side screen also helps because you can hold the camera above the heads and still see. You do not have to look through a tiny view finder. When the concert was over, I folded the camera up, plopped it into my purse, and off I went to the sports bar and hooked up with the other Fanilows. It's a nice comfortable size and remarkable for all that it does. I love it, love it, love it!

Update Sept 2011: Still using this at Barry concerts (and everywhere else). This is a wonderful camera

This camera (A 650 IS) has two problems on "Auto":

Unreliable autofocus: At my grandson's soccer game the first photo is properly focused but the next one is not. Does the "face detection" system conflict with the "image stabilization" system? Minus one star.

Unreliable exposure: Still at my grandson's soccer game the first photo is F:4 at 1/200 sec, the second is F:4 at 1/400 (dark), the third is F:4 at 1/600 (very dark) all taken within 60 seconds. Minus one star.

With a "point 'n shoot" camera it is essential that after you point it and shoot it you get a good image. This one only does that sometimes.

Amazon itself gets the full 5 stars. I ordered the camera April 4, they shipped April 5, I shot 500+ images including the soccer game April 12, contacted the "online returns center" April 14 and shipped it back the same day, Amazon processed the refund April 18 with no charge for the return shipping. No problems at all and no delays.

I will buy my next camera from Amazon!