Canon Powershot A85 Review

Canon Powershot A85 costs little more than the average 4-megapixel snapshot camera, yet it has a wealth of high-end photographic features and the backing of one of the most respected names in the camera industry. The A85 isn’t just inexpensive, it’s practical, too. At a time when more and more makers are going over to SD card storage, the A85 sticks to Compact Flash memory cards, which are still the cheapest around and available in the largest capacities. It runs on a guartet of readily available AA cells, too, and performs well using ordinary alkalines. This digital camera can take up to 140 shots on a set of alkalines according to the CIPA standard and, using Canon’s own testing criteria, this increases to shots (and a massive 800 shots, if you use the optical viewfinder rather than the LCD). Canon’s A series is rapidly developing into a high-value, highly-specified range. It started wi the 3.2-megapixel A70, then came the 4MP A80 and now they’ve been superseded by the revised A75 and ASS imodeis, respectively.

Canon Powershot A85 Advanced features

The A85 retains the characteristic body shape of its predecessors, with a hand grip on the right to help house the four AA batteries. As with previous versions, however, this looks more effective than it actually is. Overall, the camera is just too small for this to offer a proper grip, and a simpler, rectangular body might prove a bit more wieldy.

The flip-out-and-swivel LCD of the A80 has been replaced by a fixed monitor. Admittedly, it’s slightly larger, but it inevitably feels like a step backwards. The new Canon Powershot A85 has a slightly superior movie resolution and extra scene modes, but otherwise it offers the same combination of high-end controls and usability that made the A80 (and the A70) such a good camera.

The main mode dial makes these options easily accessible. It has separate dick-stops for the full-auto, Programmed AE, shutter-priority (Tv), aperture-priority (Av) and manual modes, plus portrait, landscape, night portrait, fast shutter and slow shutter settings.

There’s also a scene (SCN) setting, which offers further scene modes – Foliage, Snow, Beach, Fireworks, Indoor (though why these should be separated from the others isn’t clear). You can shoot in a special Postcard Print mode, too, designed to duplicate the 3:2 aspect ratio of 6 x 4-inch photo paper rather than the conventional 4:3 image ratio, but this means shooting at a resolution of 1,600 x 1,200, so you’re not getting the full benefit of the camera’s resolving power.

Canon Powershot A85 doesn’t quite match the most sophisticated cameras in all respects, however. The modest 3x zoom range is arguably about all you could expect for the money, but the lack of an exposure bracketing option is a mild disappointment, and there’s no live histogram display for careful exposure adjustment, either.

The body lacks the metal finish of more expensive cameras, but it feels solid and weighty, despite the plastic. We’ve already mentioned the main mode dial, but on top of that Canon’s included a better-than-average navigational controller and, of course, its standard Func button.

You press to display a list of settings down the left-hand side of the screen. Highlight any one of these and a horizontal menu opens up, and you use the controller to move across and highlight the option you want. All this takes place with the scene you’re viewing still visible in the background. Once you’ve chosen a setting, simply pressing the shutter release halfway hides the menus and leaves you ready to shoot.

The A85’s overall responsiveness is slightly less impressive. The start-up time is around two seconds, which isn’t bad, but the multipoint AiAF system could do with being as guick as it is sophisticated. Wide-angle shots take around half a second to focus, and the delay goes up to a second or so with telephoto shots. The A85’s performance is no worse than that of many other compact cameras, but it is one area in which makers don’t seem to be making a lot of progress.

Canon Powershot A85 Image quality

The Canon’s image guality is what really puts a dampener on things, though. All Canon models now use Canon’s proprietary DIGIC processing system, which does seem to produce particularly strong contrast and saturation. This can backfire on bright, sunny days, though, with shadows blocking up and highlights blowing out all too readily. This is where a RAW mode would be especially valuable, since this would let you adjust contrast on your computer – alas you don’t get it with this camera. Now most cameras will include contrast, saturation and sharpness settings to help you tailor the image processing to the conditions, but the A85 doesn’t offer this, either. You’ll just have to adapt to its contrasty colour rendition.

You’ll also have to adapt to rather indifferent resolution. It’s only average by 4-megapixel standards, and you might be expecting crisper fine detail and better-defined edges in a camera that has such a high level of photographic control. Worse than this is the A85’s tendency towards colour fringing around bright objects. Most cameras produce fringing around silhouettes or very bright highlights, but not to this extent. It might not be enough to bother snapshotters, but more serious photographers won’t be very impressed at all. However, for amateur and everyday usage this camera is the perfect choice.

Tagged with: Aa Batteries • Aa Cells • Aperture Priority • Body Shape • Canon Powershot A85 • Compact Flash Memory • Flash Memory Cards • Manual Modes • Mode Dial • Optical Viewfinder • Photographic Features • Shutter Priority • Snapshot Camera

Filed under: Canon

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