Note: This review was written WAY BACK in September of 2002. Since that time Canon has updated its PowerShot line many times. These new Powershot cameras offer far more resolution for your dollar than the A40. This review, however, may still be very felpful to those of you considering a Powershot camera.

My Digital Needs

Earlier this year I had a sudden need to document some daily activities. I knew that I would be taking thousands of photographs, most of them for computer use, but a few for prints no larger than 5x7. It was pretty clear that a digital camera would make the most sense. However, since I knew that I would be purchasing a digital SLR within the next year or two, I didn't want to spend an arm and a leg on a current generation digital camera. $300 seemed like a decent aim point.

My experience with digital cameras consisted mainly of the camera that I use at work, a 2 megapixel Epson PhotoPC 850z which was purchased 2 years ago for around $700. I've taken thousands of photographs with the Epson, and I have been generally pleased with the results. 5x7 prints are indistinguishable from film images and I wouldn't expect any larger prints from a 2 megapixel camera. The things that I don't like about the Epson are its physical size (rather large for a point and shoot) and its color balance often needs tweaked. Within the past 6 months I've also had some experience with a 3 megapixel Pentax 330. The color balance from the Pentax is excellent, but its physical size is simply too small. The current trend in digital cameras is to make them as small as possible. The result, in my opinion, is a hard to handle toy-like package that is difficult to hold still for serious photography. I was also surprised to find that the useful resolution increase from a 2 to 3 megapixel camera was rather small - almost unnoticeable. It also chewed through it's tiny Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery pack incredibly fast.

So off I went in search of the best $300 digital camera I could find. After quite a bit of searching it became clear that most cameras in this price range are of pure point-and-shoot design. After 25 years of being in total control, a pure point-and-shoot camera would definitely be quite a step down in usability. I had to find a camera that offered some form of manual control. Based on my experience with digital cameras, I came up with the following list of requirements for my new camera:

• Price of approximately $300
• 3x optical zoom (digital zooms are useless)
• Some form of manual control 
• Physically compact, yet not too small 
• Use easy-to-find, inexpensive, AA size rechargeable batteries 
• Use compact flash cards - the easiest to find and least expensive form of memory 
• Be designed by a long time film camera manufacturer

That last requirement might seem strange, but after handling digital cameras from non-film camera companies (Hewlett Packard, Sony, Epson), there is a usability factor that seems to be lacking from cameras designed by companies that normally design computers and printers. You shouldn't put the most commonly used photographic features in a submenu that takes 20 seconds to get to. It seems like longtime camera manufacturers make cameras designed for photographers and the other companies make cool gadgets. After a lot of researching on the Internet, I decided to purchase a Canon PowerShot A40.

Size & Weight

The first thing that I noticed about this camera is its excellent size and weight. Many compact digital cameras have box-like shapes that feel unnatural in your hand. The A40 is shaped like a real camera. The grip on the right hand side of this camera feels natural in the hands of a photographer. It's similar to the grip on many modern SLR cameras, such as my Nikon N65 which feels wonderful in my hands. The camera is very lightweight without the batteries, but when the 4 AA batteries are inserted its weight is absolutely perfect. It's a joy to handle, not too light or small. I hate cameras that are so small you have to hold them with just 2 fingers on each hand.  No real photographer would be caught dead doing that!  The "smaller is better" mentality of many digital camera manufacturers shows that they are designing cameras for pure snap-shooters.  I wouldn't want a camera any smaller than this. It's not truly pocket size, but it fits comfortably in the cargo pocket on the side of my hiking shorts. Perfect for my needs.

Image & Optical Quality

My first look at the images from the A40 confirmed what I had researched on the Internet and in the photo magazines; this camera generates the best 2 megapixel images that I have ever seen. The quality blows away the images from the 2 megapixel Epson that I use at work. The color is perfect, the sharpness is great, and the noise level is lower than any other digital I have ever used. The excellent sharpness is due, I am sure, to the good quality 5.4 - 16.2 mm (35mm film equivalent: 35 - 105mm) f/2.8- f/4.8 lens. The accurate color and low noise level is apparently due to first-rate firmware design. There are 3 resolution levels available for this camera (640x480, 1024x768 and 1600x1200) and 3 compression levels (SuperFine, Fine or Normal). I always shoot at maximum resolution using the "fine" compression level. With those settings I have found that a 64 meg compact flash card holds an average of 100 images, which is more than adequate given the low price of memory right now.

Auto Focusing

Basically, I have found this camera to auto focus quickly and accurately. Depressing the shutter button halfway causes the camera to auto focus. I have found the focusing to be fairly fast (less than one second) and quite accurate. After focusing is complete, depressing the shutter release all the way down results in a minuscule shutter lag. I have no problems capturing action shots with the a40. The only problem I ever had with the auto focus was while taking cloud pictures through a very heavy rainstorm. The scene had incredibly low contrast and just about any auto focus camera would have had difficulty with it. The problem was that there was no way to manually focus the camera so I missed the shot. Since this would have been a problem with most point and shoot cameras I can't really fault the camera. I look at it this way, after taking about 2000 great images with the camera I came upon one scene where it had a problem. That's pretty impressive for a $300 camera!

Early versions of the A40 had an auto focus bug that would occasionally result in slightly out-of-focus images when the lens was set at the next-to-last zoom setting. Canon released an adjustment program that took about 1 minute to run which corrected this problem. Although I never personally experienced this auto focus problem, I downloaded and installed the adjustment program with no problems. If you need this program it is available on the Canon website.

A nice feature of the A40 is the focus lock. If you auto focus on an object and hold the shutter button halfway down, it will lock the focus. This is a very handy feature.

LCD panel - Small yet Bright

LCD panels are always a challenge to see in bright sunlight. To make things worse I live in a desert, which has the brightest sunlight of all. Most of the digital cameras that I have used are virtually invisible in this type of light. The Canon A40 is the first digital camera that I have used with a display that is actually visible in bright sunlight. It's definitely bright enough to be able to select features from the menus. In actual use I can say that I use the LCD to compose my pictures 90% of the time, which is pretty impressive in desert sunlight. Note that the difference between the optical viewfinder and the LCD image is rather significant, making LCD composition very useful. In bright sunlight you won't be able to use the display to verify critical focus, but you can definitely use it to compose your shot. Of course, you don't have to worry about critical focus since this is an auto focus camera. The camera emits a double beep, and a brilliant green led flashes, when the auto focus locks onto your subject. (If you don't like the sound, you can turn it off. I find to be very helpful.) Note that if you want to check your focus after taking an image, you can use the camera's zoom button to magnify any portion of a previous image.  Nice feature!

My only slight criticism about the A40's LCD screen is that it is pretty small. It is definitely one of the smallest LCD screens that I've seen on a digital camera. However, after taking thousands of pictures with my A40 I can honestly say that the small screen really isn't a problem. I suppose the small screen contributes to the A40 incredibly long battery life. 

White balance - Full Control

The A40 supports the following White Balance settings:

• Auto - I never use this setting.  It may be convenient, but on any digital camera the automatic white balance setting will incorrectly try to "correct" the color cast of red rock landscapes, sunsets, or just about anything that deviates from average..

• Daylight - The best setting for outdoor shots.  I use this 95% of the time.

• Cloudy - Haven't used this mode much.  It doesn't seem to offer much over the daylight setting.

• Tungsten - Works great for indoor shots.  It does an amazingly good job of correcting the warm cast of tungsten lights.

• Florescent - I can finally get good shots under normal florescent lighting!  Digital blows away film when it comes to florescent lighting.

• Florescent H - For type-3-wavelength florescent lighting.  I haven't tried this yet.

Exposure Modes - Automatic & Manual

The automatic exposure control of the A40 handles most photographic situations with no problem at all. Although the user's manual doesn't really say so, the A40 seems to have an exposure lock feature that works in conjunction with its focus lock feature. If you point the camera at an object you want to be perfectly exposed, and hold the shutter button down halfway, the A40 locks the exposure. I use this feature all the time when I am exposing for cloud formations, which tend to be overexposed if you put much foreground into your picture.  You can also change the normal "Evaluative Metering" of the A40 to "Spot Metering" for precise exposure measurement of whatever is in the center of your picture.  I never use this mode because I can see the actual exposure on the LCD monitor and make any adjustments if there is a problem.

To make exposure adjustments, the A40 has a +/- 2 EV exposure compensation button (in 1/3 step increments) which is really nice. This is where LCD screens are really helpful. Tweaking exposures is always very touchy. With film cameras, in difficult lighting situations, I often bracket exposures to make sure that I get a decent shot. With an LCD screen you can see instantly if any under or over exposure had the intended effect. In fact, I often use my digital camera to set up my film shots. I use the digital to play with exposures and when I get a great looking shot, I take a high-resolution film image of the scene using the same exposure compensation. As a result of using this technique my last roll of 36 slides had 36 perfect exposures, with no bracketing.

The A40 has a manual setting, but don't expect to do any accurate exposure metering. Basically you can adjust the shutter speed and aperture (2 settings: 2.8 & 8 in wide angle mode, or 4.8 and 14 in telephoto mode) while you preview the image on the LCD screen. There's no true exposure meter, you just select the settings that make the image on the LCD look good. I was initially quite disappointed with this setup, but I have to admit that after using the camera for a short time I was able to judge an accurate exposure just by looking at the LCD. This is a whole new way of doing photography! The shutter speed range is 1/1500sec to 15sec, which pretty decent for such an inexpensive camera.

Battery Power - Plenty of it!

With 4 full size AA batteries, the Canon A40 never seems to run out of power. For example, I have shot 200 pictures, with the LCD screen on during exposures, frequently reviewing previous images, and not run out of power using just one set of batteries. I use 4 AA NiMH batteries that charge in about one hour using the AC adapter or cigarette lighter adapter for your car.

Stitch Mode - An Unexpected Delight
A gateway to 5,10, or even 15 megapixel images!

The Stitch Mode is an unexpected feature that knocked my socks off. Considering all of the landscape photography that I do, panoramic images are a logical choice. The A40's stitch mode, coupled with the PhotoStitch software included with the camera, allows you to take up to 26 images and seamlessly stitch them together. When you switch to the Stitch Mode on the A40, you see a small rendition of the normal camera image on the LCD screen. When lining up subsequent images, the previous image is still visible on the display so you can line the images up. You can repeat this process for up to 26 images! The camera overlaps about 1/3 of each image to assist the software with auto-stitching the final image. Once you download the images to your computer, the PhotoStitch software will automatically stitch together all the images. I've even used some images with pretty sloppy alignments (from a windy day with no tripod) and the software still did a perfect job of aligning the images. The exposure is locked when you take the first picture, which makes the resulting stitched image virtually seam free. The result is a massive, super-resolution image that you will be proud to display.

Playback Mode

With the included audio/video cable, you can plug the A40 into the audio/video inputs of any television set (NTSC or PAL selectable) to review images stored in the camera. While the resolution of a standard television set doesn't do justice to the images the A40 creates, it is a lot of fun to sit back on your sofa and do an instant review of the images you just took on your afternoon hike. I wasn't looking for this feature when I purchased the camera, but I've really enjoyed using it.

Stylish

Style is a very subjective thing, but even before I held an A40 I thought that its styling was a step above other compact digitals.  When I finally did get to hold one, I wasn't disappointed.  It's shape and balance is a joy to behold.  This is one camera that feels as good as it looks.  

Complaints - Very Few!

From what I have written thus far, you may have picked up the fact that I am extremely pleased with my Canon A40. Actually, I couldn't be happier with it. There are only a few issues that would have made it even better.

The camera only comes with alkaline batteries. Anyone who has used a digital camera knows that disposable batteries are definitely not the way to go. I'm sure the cost of including a recharger was the main reason it shipped with alkalines, but prospective customers must add the cost of a recharger to the purchase price of this camera. A digital camera without rechargeable batteries can be very expense to operate.  A good recharging system only costs around $19.95.