Canon PowerShot A530 5MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Zoom

Other products by Canon

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 3.5 x 2.5 x 1.7 inches ; 6.4 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000EMU888
• Item model number: 1119B001
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (226 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,368 in Camera & Photo (See Bestsellers in Camera & Photo)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: February 21, 2006

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Canon makes an affordable, high-quality 5.0-megapixel digital camera a reality with the PowerShot A530. Fast, powerful, and impressively compact, the A530 delivers beautiful images and high performance. Best of all, this camera retains all the easy-to-use accessibility that has made the PowerShot A Series so popular.

Powerful specs, amazing value
Step up to 5.0 megapixels of imaging power and a genuine Canon 4x optical zoom--it's all within your reach with the PowerShot A530. You'll see the difference 5 megapixels of resolution make when you crop images and make enlargements that are true-to-life and filled with rich detail. With a 4x optical zoom, you're ready to capture a broad range of shots. Snapshots, landscapes, and everything in between are rendered with the clear, bright quality of genuine Canon optics.

Make your camera your companion
The PowerShot A530 packs all its imaging power into a body so lightweight and compact, you'll take it everywhere. And for times when a camera is indispensable, you'll be glad you have one that doesn't weigh you down.

Canon innovation enhances your experience
The PowerShot A530 features a new ISO 800 setting that reduces the effects of camera shake and sharpens subjects in low-light situations when shooting with high shutter speeds, giving you greater flexibility for shooting.

Advanced imaging technology improves every photo

DIGIC II Image Processor
Canon's DIGIC II Image Processor is designed to improve processing speed and image quality, so DIGIC II provides markedly faster startup, autofocus, and playback, plus it assures that every image is more colorfully vibrant.

iSAPS Technology
iSAPS Technology is an entirely original scene-recognition technology developed for digital cameras by Canon. Using an internal database of thousands of different photos, iSAPS works with the fast DIGIC II Image Processor to improve focus speed and accuracy, as well as exposure and white balance.

Shoot and view wide images
The PowerShot A530 includes a 16:9 widescreen resolution option, producing images and film clips that are perfect for your widescreen TV or computer monitor.

Capture the moment in any situation
The PowerShot A530 enables you to record VGA (640 x 480) at 10 frames per second (fps) or QVGA (320 x 240) movies at 20 fps with sound. Also, with Compact Movie Mode, you can shoot QQVGA (160 x 120) at 15 fps. Now digital zoom is available when you are recording a movie. With an additional 17 shooting modes, including the settings in Special Scene mode, you can produce breathtaking pictures even when shooting conditions are tough.

Shooting Modes
Advanced presets for the best possible photos under certain conditions

Auto: The camera chooses all the settings so you can concentrate on your subject.

P Program: Access advanced exposure compensation features while shooting mostly automatically.

Manual: The ultimate in creative control, you set ISO speed, exposure compensation and white balance.

Portrait: The camera sets a large aperture, focusing the subject and artistically blurring the background to make your subject "pop."

Landscape: For front-to-back sharpness, the camera sets a small aperture.

Foliage: Capture brilliant shots of autumn foliage, greenery and blossoms.

Movie: Shoot in VGA (10 fps), QVGA (20 fps) or QQVGA (15 fps for up to 3 minutes).

Snow: Shoot clear snow scenes without darkened subjects or an unatural bluish tint.

Beach: Get clear shots of people at a sunny beach without darkened faces.

Fireworks: Grab brilliant images of skyrocketing fireworks.

Indoor: Reduce blur and improve color accuracy when shooting handheld indoors.

Kids and Pets: Reduced focusing time freezes fast-moving subjects, so you won't miss those special shots.

Night Scene: For impressive sunset or nightlife shots, the camera properly exposes the background and uses slow-sync flash for the subject.

Night Snapshot: Get natural-looking pictures with brighter backgrounds and subjects lit by flash.

Color Accent: Choose to retain a single color in your image while other colors turn monochrome.

Color Swap: Select a color and replace it with a color you specify for special effects.

Digital Macro: Shoot larger-than-life close-ups with one-button simplicity.

Stitch Assist: Build awe-inspiring panoramas by neatly aligning sequential images.

My Colors
     Vivid: Yield vibrant shots with dramatic high-contrast.

Neutral: Produce images of subtle, elegant tonality.

Sepia: Recreate the look of vintage photographs.

Black and White: Deliver enhanced clarity--especially useful when shooting text.

Positive Film: Combine "Vivid Blue," "Vivid Green," and "Vivid Red" to achieve a positive film effect.

Lighter Skin Tone: Make your subjects' skin tones lighter.

Darker Skin Tone: Darken skin tones a shade.

Custom Color: Finely adjust brightness and vividness, and set your preferred balance of blue, green, red, and skin colors.

The complete print solution
The PowerShot A530's Print/Share button makes direct printing easier than ever. Simply connect the A530 to a Canon CP, SELPHY, or PIXMA Photo Printer or any PictBridge compatible photo printer, press the lighted Print/Share button and print! Also use the Print/Share button to transfer images to a computer (Windows and Macintosh). (Printers not included--must be purchased separately.)

What's in the Box
PowerShot A530 body, AA-size Alkaline Battery (x2), MultiMediaCard MMC-16M, Wrist Strap WS-800, Digital Camera Solution CD-ROM, USB Interface Cable IFC-400PCU, AV Cable AVC-DC300

Product Description

The PowerShot A530 is equipped with an approximately 5.0 million camera effective pixel 1/2.5-inch Charge Coupled Device (CCD). Also, with DIGIC II, higher resolution and high-speed processing were achieved and the startup time and response time were shortened. This camera is equipped with the 4x optical zoom lens, which covers a 35mm film equivalent focal length ranging from 35 mm (Wide Angle) to 140 mm (Telephoto) and an f/2.6 (Wide Angle) - f/5.5 (Telephoto) aperture.The PowerShot A530 succeeds the basic shooting functions of the PowerShot A510 and has additional or more advanced functions as well except omitting Tv (Shutter-Priority AE) and Av (Aperture-Priority AE) in the shooting mode.The recording pixels now include a "Widescreen" feature that has the same aspect ratio as so-called 16:9 widescreen TVs for shooting wide images. Adding ISO [800] has resulted in a faster shutter speed even when shooting in dark environments. The Color Accent mode and Color Swap mode that transform colors when shooting have been added to the Special Scene mode. The new "My Colors" in the FUNC. menu is used to change the look and feel of the pictures when shooting. With the newly added "Standard", "Compact", "Color Accent" and "Color Swap" in the movie mode, it is easier to select modes to meet the purpose. In the Standard mode, digital zoom while recording movies is available.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

335 of 341 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent camera for the price, April 18, 2006

By	Jpesci - See all my reviews

The Canon A530 is an amazing camera for the price or anyone on a slightly tighter budget. The first thing that surprised me about it was how small it was; at only 3.5 inches wide and 2.5 inches high, it fits easily into your pocket, and serves well as a travel companion.

Pros:
- Amazing image quality for a camera in this price range
- Excellent clarity in macro mode
- ISO 800 is useful to have when taking night shots without a tripod or flash
- My colors settings are useful and surprisingly intricate; you can set a custom setting for levels in red, green, and blue individually, as well as contrast, sharpness, saturation, and skin tone
- Color accent and swap are nice features for the creative type, and are often more accurate than I had expected
- Stitch assist mode automatically locks exposure compensation and aperture to make panoramas easier and consistent (I would really recommend a tripod when doing this to keep the camera level, though. Stitch assist software isn't perfect)
- Widescreen 16:9 framing is a nice feature (not to be confused with true widescreen, but automatically frames and crops in 16:9 ratio)
- 4x optical zoom works very well
- Extremely fast start-up time (about one second)
- Excellent auto-focus features
- Amazing battery-life (a pair of Energizer lithiums lasted me about 800 shots with LCD)

Cons:
- Only two aperture settings per zoom level in manual mode. ex. f/2.6 and f/5.6 at 1x, but nothing in-between (the A540 has in-between values for each zoom)
- Would have been nice to have had a flip-out LCD like the A610
- No Aperture or Shutter Speed priority modes (the A540 does have them)
- LCD screen extremely hard to see in very bright conditions (although to be fair, this seems like a more common issue among digital cameras)

All in all, the Canon A530 is an excellent choice for the price, and might be the best bang for your buck if you're looking for something with more features than your standard point-and-shoot, along with excellent image quality.

158 of 162 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent value for the money, May 8, 2006

By	Floyd Turbo "carl0086" (USA) - See all my reviews

I don't want to trash the reviewer from Florida, but reading the manual will take care of all of your problems. The flower icon is for the Macro setting. There's an easy-to-read chart of icons in the manual and if you can't figure out the icon from a chart that shows all of the icons it's no wonder that you found an actual written manual too complex. The macro produces crisp pictures with excellent color.
I also use this to take pictures for eBay and it works wonderfully and needs no additional lighting. I have a simple 200watt soft light and the flash doesn't go off when I shoot items. Turning off the flash is even easier - it's just one button to push and I can't fathom why anyone can't figure that out.
The ISO 800 setting is much better than on the previous PowerShots, but still isn't perfect. However, this is a point-and-shoot camera and is adaquate for almost all needs if you remember that. I shot some wonderful pictures in a dark concert hall and got excellent clarity on about 80% of the pictures - the rest had some slight blurring.
I enjoyed the various settings, especially the stitching, and found them all easy to use and useful. The videos are of pretty decent quality as well, though it's not a video camera.
For the price, this is an excellent camera for everyday use and special occasions.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Point and Shoot Camera, May 13, 2006

By	Linda D. Pinder (Spanish Wells, Bahamas) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I thought this Canon deserved more than an average of 3.5 stars, so I'm adding my comments.

I bought the A530 for my daughter when it became available on Amazon. She had taken photos, with her three-year-old Sony 5MP, of her roses in macro mode. Most of the photos were out of focus. The Sony just seemed to have trouble focusing on the right subject in macro mode. I have found that Canon cameras take excellent photos, especially in macro mode, and the A530 has not disappointed. She (and I) have taken many sharply focused photos of flowers, up close.

LIKES: Very good quality, features, and price. Sharp and colorful photos. Easy to use, small and lightweight. Improved over the A520 with 5MP instead of 4MP and MUCH faster performance.

DISLIKES: Canon's decrease of LCD pixel resolution per inch on the lastest models - A430, A530, A540. A disappointment, but only a small annoyance.

ADDED NOTE: Daylight photos are always better over indoor flash shots, whenever possible, with any camera.