Canon Powershot A570IS

If you managed to catch the Canon A560 review I did a couple of weeks back, you'd notice me mentioning that the camera seemed so incomplete without image stabilization. Now with the A570IS in my grasp featuring everything that the A560 had to offer, along with the much needed optical image stabilization, let's see how well that works out.

Build
A little bulky but elegant is what I would label the A570IS as. Though the design standards stay similar in the whole of Canon's A500 series of digicams, the A570IS looks the classiest of the bunch. This would probably be because of the metallic parts that make an appearance in the otherwise plastic body, and the use of dark shades of gray for the text and the handgrip.

The build quality, overall, is quite sturdy and built to last. The buttons feel firm yet responsive, which is the way it should be.

The top of the A570 consists of the power and shutter release buttons, along with a mode dial. The shutter release button has a ring toggle switch for zooming in and out. I personally find that a lot more convenient than having a switch at the back of the camera for zooming. The mode dial allows you to select between basic shooting modes like portrait, landscape, etc. along with a scene mode where you can select something more specific. You also have a range of manual modes like, well, Manual, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority, etc. Even the video shooting mode can be accessed via this dial.

The back of the camera contains the rest of the controls, along with a 2.5 inch LCD display that works pretty well under most lighting conditions. Even when shooting in bright sunlight, the image on the display was clearly visible. The part I really appreciate about this series of cameras is that they come with an optical viewfinder option. It may seem redundant when you have such a nice LCD display, but when you're trying to save the little juice you have in your batteries, shutting down the LCD can really help.

So even though the A570 is a compact camera that may not be the sleekest looking thing in the market today, it does manage to hold its own. But then again, it was never about the looks in this series.