Canon Powershot A630 Digital Camera

Canon A630

The Canon PowerShot A630 couples an 8.0-megapixel CCD imaging sensor with a 4x optical zoom lens that offers a 35mm-equivalent focal range of 35-140mm.

With a moderate wide-angle to a somewhat more generous telephoto than you'll find on most compact cameras. Maximum apertures vary from f/2.8 to f/4.1 across the zoom range. The A630's sensor yields an ISO range equivalent to 80 to 800, while shutter speeds from 1/2,500 to 15 seconds are possible.

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Canon Powershot A630 features

Designed with ease of use in mind, theCanon Powershot A630 offers both a range of features that make it approachable to beginners, as well as the ability to exert more control over the photographic process.

For the former category of users, there's a fully automatic mode, and a generous selection of thirteen scene modes. For the latter, you'll find Manual, and Aperture Shutter Priority exposures possible, plus preset, or manual White Balance, and three Metering modes. A VGA-or-below Movie mode captures videos at a maximum of 30 frames per second, for up to one hour (or one gigabyte) per clip.

The Canon Powershot A630's USB connection allows easy offload of images from the SD, or MMC card to a Mac, or PC -- and unlike some manufacturers who are still clinging to the older USB 1.1/2.0 Full Speed standard.

The Canon A630 has adopted a much swifter USB 2.0 High Speed interface in the Canon Powershot A630. For users without a computer (or those who like to make quick prints without the hassle of touching their PC), you can bypass the extra step completely, and print directly from the PowerShot A630 to a Canon, or other PictBridge-enabled printer via the same fast USB connection.

Though it has a relatively large 2.5 inch LCD, Canon kept a real image optical viewfinder in the A630's design. Not only can optical viewfinders help to save battery life by turning off the LCD display, they're also useful when ambient light makes it tough to see many LCDs properly.

Power comes from four AA batteries, and Canon includes single-use alkaline disposables in the product bundle. Also included with the Canon A630 is a not-so-generous 16MB MultiMediaCard.

If you don't already have some, you'll want to purchase some rechargeable batteries, and a larger flash card along with the camera.

Canon PowerShot A630 real world report:

It seems to me that if you can't find a Canon that matches your requirements, you just haven't looked very carefully. The Canon lineup is so rich with options it's often hard to tell one model from another.

The Canon Powershot A630 might, for example, be easily confused with the A640, except it has an 8.0-megapixel sensor and doesn't support remote capture. Neither of which strike me as a problem. Especially when the savings amounts to $100.

Canon shares my opinion, it seems, because the manual for both models is identical. Or I should say the "manuals" because you need a set (the Basic, the Advanced, the Printing manuals). The A640 is black while the Canon A630 is silver, but the bodies are otherwise identical.

It's rather astonishing you can get so much camera for $300 these days -- especially considering its extensive exposure options. The Canon A630 is a classic.

Design. And there's some sweet stuff in these bodies, too. A large 2.5-inch LCD is always welcome, but these are what Canon calls Variable LCDs (articulated ones, that is, that swing out and rotate up or down so you can compose a shot with the camera over your head or down low). Canon has also included an optical viewfinder on the A630.

Despite its approximate rendering of the scene is indispensable when the glare of the sun makes it impossible to see what's on the LCD. Although here again, having an LCD you can move independently of the lens means you can often eliminate that glare.

As with other A-Series Canons, the A630 has a grip you can get your hands on thanks to the four AA batteries it uses for power. Although it's substantial, the grip isn't too fat to keep the Canon A630 out of your pocket, although I tended to prefer to simply swing it from my wrist so it was ready for action.

The Canon Powershot A630 doesn't cheat on exposure options either. There's green Auto for those times when you have other things on your mind, and Program when you want to have at least EV control over exposure.

But there's also Shutter and Aperture Priority modes. And -- drum roll -- a full Manual mode as well. Add a Custom mode to save a special configuration and there's really little you can't do with this digicam.

On the other end of the Canon A630's Mode dial, you have Movie, Panorama, and Special Scene modes. There's also the primary Scene modes: Portrait, Landscape, and Night Scene.

Grip. In shooting position, the camera is very comfortable to hold.
The controls and menu system have, by now, evolved into a package that's really comfortable to use once you learn how to play the game. In Auto, you don't worry about the buttons at all.

In Program, just hit the Canon A630's EV button and change the exposure with the Left or Right arrow keys. Shutter and Aperture Priority modes use those arrow keys to adjust their values, too. Manual uses the EV button to toggle between aperture and shutter speed, both adjusted with those same arrow keys.

Top. The Mode dial behind the Shutter button is easily checked while you shoot. Note the alignment of the lens, viewfinder and eyepiece on the left.

In short, this is a well-design machine.

Display/Viewfinder. The 2.5-inch LCD is large by any standard but it only displays 115,000 pixels. The big news, however, is that you can swing the Canon A630's LCD out from the back of the camera and twist it up or down. You can even flip it back so it pops right back into the rear panel as if it were an ordinary LCD.

Once you've used an articulated LCD, you'll never want to be without one.

Articulated LCD. Beats putting your nose up against the back to see through the optical viewfinder.

To illustrate the amazing angles you can shoot from without even twisting your neck, I set the Canon A630's LCD so I could look down at it while the camera poked its nose into the corner of a bookcase where it could see a few titles in Macro mode.

To shoot this shot with an ordinary LCD, you'd have to put your eyeball in line with the back of the camera. You'd be squatting, that is, with your head bent back.