Digital Cameras : Canon PowerShot A640

I teach photography in a large high school and have been taking pictures for over 40 years. I have also taught in colleges and had my own photo business. I wanted a small, walking around camera and after seeing the quality that one of my students obtained from this camera, as well as reading online reviews, I bought it. Overall, I am very pleased, but there are a few things that you should be aware of. To get the features that I mention as cons, you will have to spend more, if you can get them at all. For instance, if I wanted to spend $200 more, I could have bought the G7 and had image stabilization. I am sure that may have made me happier, but this purchase was also dictated by price. I paid $267, which I consider very reasonable and for that price it was a no brainer. You can easily enlarge photos to 11X14 and probably 16X20. However, my printer only prints to 13X19 and I leave a 1 inch border. At 11X14, the quality is outstanding. I also like the accuracy of the auto focus system. I can count on pictures being sharp as long as I listen for the audible beep. I have done numberous closeups with it held over my head or down at my feet. They are almost always tack sharp. A con that I mention is barrel distortion. It seems that almost all of the small cameras and zoom lenses on DSLR's produce it. I wish it were not so. Unless you buy a DSLR and get a lens made for close up photographs, like the 105mm Micro Nikkor, you will have it. Still, I wish it was not there. The zoom range for this camera is adequate, but modest. I wish it went out further. However, if you want to do closeups, this thing will get you in to about a half inch. All in all, I find this camera to be a modern marvel. The ten megapixels rival medium format film camera quality and exposure and color accuracy is right on the button. Hide Full Review

I've been using this camera for a couple of months. It has very nice resolution and excellent colour range due to the Digic II processor. The viewfinder is large and great with its ability to swivel. Not very fussy on the Zoom Browser software. I do wish that a camera of this quality had RAW file capability, but it doesn't. I guess Canon want you to move to the G7 for that feature. All in all, if you want to make large prints, or simply want to do more cropping to make your image like it was taken with a 35mm camera, then this is great for the value. Hide Full Review

I recently got myself a Canon Powershot A640 and i was stunned to see its features and picture clearity, 10 megapixel is enough to take big images for prints. And ISO upto 800 is good but makes some noise, LCD is awesome and can shoot with tilting it when you want to take pictures from from top also and if you want to take your own pic, its better :), over all Canon is best as i am Canon Fan and had Canon powershot A530 and Canon Handcam too, this adds gold to my canon collection, Canon Rocks. Best Buy for everyone in the move. Hide Full Review

I got this for Mothers day and have been snapping ever since. The battery life is incredible!

Controls are easy to use. I have had so many compliments on my pictures. I'm a very busy scrapbooker now. I have a daughter in the photography field and she picked it because of ease of use for me. Mom's I highly recommend it! Hide Full Review