Digital Camera Review

Digital Camera Review

The Canon PowerShot A520 is a compact digital camera with an unusual range of manual controls and capabilities within the sub-$299 (USD) price bracket. Replacing the A85, the PowerShot A520 expresses a 13% frame reduction, down to 3.6 x 2.5 x 1.5 inches (90.7 x 64.0 x 38.4 mm), and weighs just 6.3 ounces (180 grams). The condensed A520 offers users a 1/2.5-inch 4.0 megapixel CCD, DIGIC image processor, 4x optical zoom lens, 1.8-inch TFT color LCD and 9-point Auto Intelligent Auto focus system in a camera that is small enough to fit comfortably in a coat pocket or purse.
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Picture Quality / Size Options (7.5)
The PowerShot A520 offers four size settings and three quality settings. The settings are accessible via the FUNC. button. The sizes are: 2272 x 1704 pixels, 1600 x 1200 pixels, 1024 x 768, and 640 x 480 pixels. The camera offers three levels of quality, which Canon refers to as compression. The compression or quality settings are “Superfine” “Fine” and “Normal.”

The A520 offers three sizes for movies, but not varying quality. The sizes are 640 x 480, 320 x 240, and 160 x 120.

Picture Effects Mode (7.5)
The PowerShot A520 offers five picture effects. They are: Vivid (increases color and contrast); Neutral (tones down color and contrast); Low sharpening (softens the edges of subject matter); Sepia (tints the image brownish); and B/W (which creates monochromatic, black and white images). Relatively few cameras have more practical effects than this, though some pack in some that are far more exotic. In general, the more outlandish an effect, the faster people get tired of it.

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