A 710 Limitations I've Discovered

[Setter Dog]

I have used the A 710 for several months now and am quite pleased with it. I especially like the size. It fits beautifully in the shirt pocked of my hunting shirt and can be operated easily with one hand.

I don't like the fact that the burst mode can't be set on P mode and stay set. If the camera had a C mode like the S3 does, I'd probably be okay. I really like to use burst and get tired of setting it every time.

I use the camera outside and wear sunglasses. I find the LCD screen to be pretty much worthless. I knew that and am glad this fine camera has a viewfinder.

There's an interesting mode that allows you to cut back on resolution, effectively increasing the zoom to 9 or 12 X without quality loss. I don't know how this works exactly but it does. The problem is that as soon as you reach 6X zoom the only viewfinder that is then accurate is the LCD. If you are using the optical viewfinder, be sure and leave plenty of room on both sides of your subject or you will "crop" them out.

All in all the 710 is a fine camera. It does have limitations but they can be worked around.

[reppans]

You can get 24x zoom, if you're willing to live with 640x480 size.

Safety zoom and digital teleconverter functions described here (under novel functions and features):

http://web.canon.jp/Imaging/psa710is/index-e.html

All the new Canons seem to have it. In essence, however, it's nothing more than a built-in cropping tool. You do the same thing with any other camera by cropping in post processing.

[lathe]

In regards to the LCD being useless outdoors, check and see if your sunglasses are polarized. If they are, and you have them oriented the wrong way, your LCD will appear black while everything around the LCD looks ok. This is caused by the double-polarizer effect. Try turning/rotating the glasses or just taking them off and see if that helps.

That said, you might have normal sunglasses and the LCD simply isn't bright enough.

[BowerR64]

Polarizer sunglasses? are they round like filters? can you rotate the leses like polarizer lenses?

[nap]

Polarizer sunglasses? are they round like filters? can you rotate the leses like polarizer lenses?

Haha! No, they look like normal sunglasses. They are polarized in 1 direction only - I think it is polarized to reduce glare coming from the road or from water surfaces.

[lathe]

Haha! No, they look like normal sunglasses. They are polarized in 1 direction only - I think it is polarized to reduce glare coming from the road or from water surfaces.

Yup, that's exactly you wear them. Unlike the cheapo sunglasses that are just greyish filters, polarized sunglasses do the same thing for your eyes as they do for your camera.