Hey, Canon A520 users...

Re: Hey, Canon A520 users...

paul womack

>O.K., in my quest for a digital camera I have changed my mind from the Nikon 4600 to the Canon A510, however the local stores don't seem to carry the A510, but do have the A520.

The 510 is 3Mp, the 520 is 4Mp. AFAIK this is the ONLY change. In the megapixel arms race, I suspect the stores have tired of explaining that 3 is probably enough and are simply selling what the market demands. If the A520 is within your budget (and probably costing less than a A510 did 3 months ago!) go for it.

Biggest reason for change was as BugBear(IIRC)pointed out, the manual focus feature. I fiqure that I should have control of that for specific purposes.

I VERY VERY VERY rarely use this feature. It's fiddly and inconvenient. Conforting to know it's there, I suppose. The manual controls over aperture, shutter speed I use greatly.

#1 was that the 4 battery model was better than the 2 battery model. Has that been much of an issue with you 2 battery users?

Battery life is OK. I'm a heavy user of the review feature when I'm tweaking settings. I simply have 4 (2 sets of 2) NiMh batteries and a charger.

#2,Complaints of the flash being too bright for Macro shots where made. Again, is that an issue?

Not an issue. Never use flash for macro. Just don't. For macro you'd need a ring flash, and the camera doesn't have one.

For macro (and almost anything else IMNSHO) just use available light, or room lighting, a tripod, and a "suitable" exposure.

Can any Nikon users tell me (and Todd) which of the Nikon shooting modes would be suitable to achieve this? I am loathe to be a "fan boy" for Canon over Nikon out of ignorance.

BugBear

Re: Hey, Canon A520 users...

Clay C in Miami

>#2,Complaints of the flash being too bright for Macro shots where made. Again, is that an issue?

Not an issue. Never use flash for macro. Just don't. For macro you'd need a ring flash, and the camera doesn't have one.

For macro (and almost anything else IMNSHO) just use available light, or room lighting, a tripod, and a "suitable" exposure.

Can any Nikon users tell me (and Todd) which of the Nikon shooting modes would be suitable to achieve this? I am loathe to be a "fan boy" for Canon over Nikon out of ignorance.

BugBear

_____________________________

If you mean what mode for no-flash, both on my old Nikon Coolpix 800 and my D70, if you just turn off the autoflash, it auto-adjusts the aperture/shutter speed to accomodate. Not sure what other 4600 modes are suitable, but I'm certain the 4600 will do that much.

Clay

Re: Hey, Canon A520 users...

paul womack

>If you mean what mode for no-flash, both on my old Nikon Coolpix 800 and my D70, if you just turn off the autoflash, it auto-adjusts the aperture/shutter speed to accomodate. Not sure what other 4600 modes are suitable, but I'm certain the 4600 will do that much.

Sorry - I should have been more specific.

I was thinking of a "shooting mode" suitable for "still life".

In manual terms, I'm thinking of flash-off, timer release, very tight aperture (for sharpness and DOF), and whatever-exposure-it-takes ;-)

"still life" mode, but the 4600 doesn't have anthing called that.

List is:

Auto, Scene Assist (Portrait, Landscape, Sports, Night portrait), Scene (Party/Indoor, Beach/Snow, Sunset, Dusk/Dawn, Night landscape, Close up, Museum, Fireworks show, Copy, Back light, Panorama assist, Underwater), BSS (Best Shot Selector), Blur warning, Date imprint, Self-timer (10 sec.), Single, Continuous (1.3fps; up to 3 frames), Multi-shot 16 (16 consecutive frames 1/16 in size);

BugBear

Re: Hey, Canon A520 users...

Jerry Nicholson

>I too have selected "point & shoot" cameras partially based on the availability of manual focus but I have not found manual focus to be very useable at all on these. The capability to manually set aperture shutter speed, or both is very desireable.

Digital SLRs, at least the lower end like Nikon D70, do not have focussing screens like film SLRs do (or at least did) and can be tedious to manually focus, particularly with the rather slow lenses that typically come with them. The D70 does provide an indication of when the autofocus system thinks a manual focus lens might be focussed.

Jerry

Re: 2 batteries are probably better

Barryvabeach

>Todd, I know you are agonizing over this - I sometimes do teh same thing. I don't have the Canon, but have an older Olympus with 4AA batteries. I am looking to replace it with a 2 AA battery camera - Camera have gotten pretty efficient so 2 AA are enough and having 4 AA in the camera adds extra size and weight - So go with two if you can. Good luck shopping.

Re: 2 batteries are probably better

paul womack

>4 AA in the camera adds extra size and weight

My older Canon A60 had four batteries, and I actually preferred the slightly larger size and mass for handling (but not for carrying...)

BugBear