Home > Consumer Reviews > Canon PowerShot A10 1.3MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom

This camera is a joy to use. It has a solid feel to it, with the grip housing the CF card and 4AA batteries - the weight is just right for casual shooting (common CCDs take longer exposure time than regular films, so jittering is an issue with smaller cameras).

The camera looks well built, and has a mature, understated, and attractive design to it. (Everything on it has a purpose, like a dot near the flash to prevent flash from being covered by a finger; even the bezel around the zoom lens, which screws off to reveal a lens adapter socket!) None of the components (especially the battery/CF compartment) looks or feels flimsy - all the switches operate smoothly. The case has no jagged edges and sensible rectangular shape, so it'll fit in your pocket confortably. LCD is bright, colorful, and large enough. Viewfinder is, well, useable, but you won't be using this unless you want to save battery.

Zooming is a little slow, but this is not an issue with this price tag.

It is very robust. AA NiMH rechargeables, while not included, are cheap, reliable, long-lasting, and very easy to replace (you can just have a set of cheap alkaline battery as a spare). Don't get Ni-Cd - it's useless.

I've dropped the camera once already, but to my amazement, everything works perfectly.

Picture quality is great. It is more than adequate for most of the purposes - and it is great to experiment on shots before you commit to shooting with film. This will allow me to refine my composition skills. I do recommend getting 128MB CF card ($40-50 nowadays), which will definitely last you a good day or two, with 177 to1417 (high to low resolution) shots!

The camera has a lot of very useful functions, such as slow-synchro, timer, color-balance (very good compensation for fluorescent and tungsten light), image rotation, etc., etc. Stich-assist and included software is wonderful, as you can recreate the panoramic scene when viewed by QuicktimeVR. It sounds like a toy, but I'm certain you will be impressed by the effect it has on you.

Both PC and Macs are supported, and Mac software is decent. I have no complaints. It'll be perfect if you already own Photoshop and/or ImageConverter (the latter being absolutely a top-notch batch image-conversion shareware).

If I had any complaint, it is the warm-up time: You need to hold the power button for fully 3-4 seconds until the camera is turned on and ready to shoot. I'd trade lens zoom (which is not impressive anyway) with a faster startup - it'll be even more useful that way. Also, a way to set up timer length would have been easy to implement without additional cost (or a remote via USB, but that's ok)

Canon really meant the A10 to be a lean, versatile, mature product - it has all the functions a non-professional user can ask for, coupled with a well-thought out layout and a solid construction. Smart thing is that A10 and A20's accessories are compatible - I'm thinking of getting the wide-angle lens adapter, water-proof casing, and dye-sub printer. This thing *will* adapt to your lifestyle and won't cramp you with proprietary components and gimmicks (unlike A20's mostly useless TV output)!

After spending a bucket of money on my 35mm camera for development, I decided to bite the bullet and go digital. We have a number of digital cameras in our department including an Olympus 3MegaPixel and an Agfa 1.2MegaPixel. When using images for high quality printing the 3MPix was great, but the 1.2MPix produced wonderful screen images, more than adequate for web page and small printed sections (@300dpi you get 4"x3"). I wasn't going to be printing pics so I considered 1.2MPix enough for me.

Looking around at the various reviews it was obvious that Canon had put a lot of work into image compression speed, data transfer rate, and battery life. Combined with Canon's excellent quality optics ... well, this is the one I had to have.

I rushed out and bought a 256Meg compact flash card, for the long tours I occasionally do. I've taken 550 images in the first two weeks and I'm on the second set of batteries, the camera reports it can hold another 150 more! I could double that if I increased the image compression to "normal" mode. The image quality is just wonderful ~ 1280x960, bigger than my screen.

Only gripe is the view finder that you look through has a hard time showing the boundaries of the image, just a matter of getting used to it. Sure, I could use the LCD display to take the image (and I do on some close ups) but it drains batteries. Doing a wide mix of display use and flash, the supplied alkaline batteries lasted 260 shots ~ way beyond the Olympus and Agfa achieved.

And with zero development cost, I've done heaps of photographic experimenting that I would never have even considered with a 35mm just because of the cost of film and development.

So, YES, I highly recommend this camera. Also get some NiMH batteries and a charger, a dinky camera bag, and a big compact flash card (maybe 256Meg was a bit too much, 64Meg or 128Meg would have done the job nicely).

I did a lot of searching on the internet at all types of digicams and reviews just like this one. This camera didn't have a single bad review from any websites that I could find. And I wrote down every feature a digicam can have and checked off features for every camera I looked at. This camera had the most features, the best reviews, and a great price tag. I now own the camera and only after a few days, I've realized I made the perfect choice because it offers so much and is so easy to use. I think every digicam out there should have the dial on it because it makes it so easy to sue...and a lot of cameras do have this feature. The quality of the pictures is all I was worried about because its only 1.3 megapixels...well, I'm VERY impressed with the image quality!!! all my shots are very clear and crisp. As for anything negative, only that the batteries seem to run out fast, but I think it may just be the batteries because I got some cheapy rechargeables that came with my camera carrying case. Also, I recomend getting a 32 or 64 MB card with the camera becuase the 8MB gets you about 20-25 pictures on high resolution.
This camera is a must get camera in the price range its in, I seriously doubt any other camera can compare to this one in the price range around (dollar amount).
One last comment, I can't believe how easy the camera AND software are to use....the software does almost everything by itself and the camera is so easy to use that it makes taking pictures perfectly so much fun!!

I've had every kind of camera in the past, and finally decided to try digital. I thought it would be a "fun" camera to have for certain situations, but didn't have high expectations for the picture quality. I have to say that this camera has exceeded my expectations!! The picture quality is great and I like being able to edit the color, brightness and contrast with the included Canon software. I just received the camera and took a total of 34 pictures over 2 days, with the LCD turned on for most of them. We looked at the pictures on the LCD 3-4 times and downloaded 18 of them to the computer from the camera and the batteries are still going strong. I went out yesterday and bought an external card reader to download from and that works super too. This camera is a bargain at $...! I highly recommend it! I also ordered the Lowepro D-Res 10 AW Digital Camera Bag, and it fits this camera like a glove.

I own a Canon 35mm camera & love it! I've taken tons of pics & always hated waiting to finish the roll, & then to wait & go have it developed. Most of my photos wound up being scanned & posted on the internet. So I firgured a digital camera would be better. I did a lot of searching & reading the reveiws of others about their purchases.
I bought the A10 for several reasons: 1)The name Canon. 2)I didn't need the movie mode. 3)Takes 4 AA batteries. 4)I wasn't worried about the 1.3 pixels since I don't print my images. (The A10s image is better than a sharp 35mm pic after it has been scanned)
The software to download was simple & the operation of the camera is easy to learn.
I use the LCD screen very little, the optical viewfinder is perfect. The viewfinder zooms in & out with the lens.
My very 1st image turned out great! I've owned the A10 a week now & LOVE it! I take the camera everywhere I go.