A720 IS: A Photo Aficionado camera for everyone.

We can imagine the Canon designers reciting the mantra “cost reduction, cost reduction, coooost reductioooon”. And, guess what? They did reduce costs yet the A720 is not the average silver digicam nor the typical one-trick P&S.

In the front you’ll find immediately some good reasons to consider this budget camera seriously: 6x optical zoom (35mm-210mm equiv) which is a versatile (yet unsurprising at the wide end) lens length. Zoom is better than the average 3x or 4x of most other cameras in this class. The second reason is Image Stabilization. It seems pretty obvious that Canon is implementing IS to most of its line and that the Panasonic’s O.I.S. are closer than they appear. The IS feature is very welcomed. The third reason is a good resolution; although more megapixels are not the key feature of any camera, having eight million pixels will let you make big prints or crop confidently. The fourth reason: you can use an adapter to upgrade the A720 with wide and tele conversion lens.

In the back the first thing you’ll notice is a big 2.5” LCD that, surprisingly, is not a battery eater. This monitor delivers nice images and is great for framing. There is also a basic optical viewfinder. You won’t find many buttons in the back: the typical PowerShot interface. It's a simple interface, but that means that you'll have to dig into menus frequently.

Now, lets go to the top: on/off button, and WHAT IS THIS? The mode dial is  filled with presets, but above the green “Auto” zone there are full manual controls. And there’s where the fun begins.

The A720 is equipped with the Digic III processor. That means that it is very consistent with the rest of Canon line. The performance is pretty snappy and that’s good if you find some surprising scene and you want to capture it. The continuous shooting mode is not blazing fast though. If you want to use flash, the recharge delay is about four seconds (not bad) with NiMh batteries (that’s why!), but you may expect slower performance with alkaline batteries. The A720 uses two AA batteries and that’s great for traveling, and also most packs are of 4 batteries (even rechargeable) and that’s good for having always an extra pair available.

As a Point and Shoot, this camera excels with everything covered. Right away you’ll have the most useful scene modes right on the mode dial and there are more in the “SCN” setting. The photo-stitch is there for panoramas as well as the movie mode. Speaking of movie mode, it is very basic: mono audio and two 640x480 @30 fps modes (the differences are the compression) and one 320x240 @30fps mode. Up to this point this seem a camera made to say “could you please shoot a photo of us?” to any waiter. Are you beyond the P&S? Then the creative zone is what makes the A720 a nice camera.

This is a basic camera and you won’t find some delicacies in manual mode such a live histogram, but you can choose at your taste aperture and shutter speed, ISO from 80 to 1600 (will tell you later about the ISO performance),  white balance setting,  a continuous mode plus three self timer options. Obviously there is no RAW format available and you’ll find the typical Digic III set of “My Colors” option. They always seem like a light version "Picture Styles", although not as useful or versatile as the real thing. You can modify the flash output which is good, and you’ll be able to use evaluative, center weighted average and spot metering.

Digging into the record menu you’ll be able to set the IS mode (which includes a panning stabilizing option), choose the display overlay, assign a function to the shortcut button and change the auto focus options. We found useful to set the ISO settings at the shortcut button.
 

ISO sensitivities and noise issues

ISO behavior is not better than any other PowerShot. Those 8 million pixels stuffed in a really tiny sensor have a price: noise. This is not a great night performer. Above ISO 800 noise is awful and ISO 1600 has lost detail. Even at ISO 200 you’ll find both chroma and luminance noise when pixel peeping. In the real life you can use up to ISO 400 with moderate noise. The good news are the Image Stabilization that will allow you to set a lower ISO speed reducing the blur due to camera shake. These means that the A720 IS is not a good camera for low light situations, but you can expect good performance at low ISO levels.

Canon PowerShot A720 IS (100% crops)
ISO 80	ISO 100	ISO 200
ISO 400	ISO 800	ISO 1600

That’s it for the technobable. How does the A720 IS feel? The camera says all over “I’m a budget camera”, no doubt about it, but it feels no cheap either. Although it is plastic, the infamous battery-card door curse of Canon isn’t present with this particular model: the door feels pretty solid. Don’t expect to impress anyone with a trendy design. The creative zone demands a good knowledge of the camera, but it sports many ways to overcome the typical downsides of a compact cameras.

The bottom line of any camera is Image Quality, and the A720 does not disappoint. Although low light performance is mediocre, is not worse than any other comparable compact and it is even on the same level as much more expensive cameras.

This is also a superb travel camera since it is inexpensive, has a good zoom and it is very versatile. If you'd get your camera stolen in an overseas trip , for $200 you'd return home with pretty good photos and a decent compact camera.

The A720 IS is a very good gift if you want to initiate someone in the art of photography, and it is certainly a great recommendation for anyone interested in becoming a Photo Aficionado.

The 6x zoom, 8 megapixels, Image Stabilization, 2.5" LCD monitor and full manual features make this entry level camera a very capable photographic machine. You won't impress anyone with its looks, but wait until you show the photos you can take with it.

The bottom line