Camera Reviews

PowerShot A590 IS

The A590 IS is somewhat similar in design to the A720 IS. The A590 IS is an 8 MP camera that comes with a 4x optical zoom and is also one of the cheapest cameras in the category at Rs 10,995.

Build quality seems to have taken a hit too. The battery door seems a little wobbly and loose. The rest of the body looks and feels great. The mode selection is done using a really rigid dial. The user interface hasn’t seen a lot of change either.

The quality in general is decent and a little sharp. There is some grain all through the photos. There is no kind of colouration in the images though. The video frame rate at 640 x 480 has been dropped to 20 fps which means you won’t get the smoothest possible video. For 30 fps you need to drop your video resolution to 320 x 240. If you wish to use the camera for video shooting purposes as well, then this is something to keep in mind before buying this camera.

Some of the old features are still there like the manual focus. It works great, is fun to use and is one of the cheapest cameras to feature this. There is also an Easy mode that lets you forget all about the settings you can use with the camera. Like many other manufacturers, features like face detection have been added to the list of features.

Overall, it scores very close to the Samsung i8. It is kind of disappointing to see a camera such as the A590 IS which should have been as good as its predecessor the A570 IS. Fortunately for you, the prices for the A590 IS are much lower too. If optical zoom holds no interest, then the A590 IS is a great photo taking camera to own.

Samsung NV24HD

The Samsung is another unique camera that we got. Much can’t be said about its performance, but what it does have Is features. The biggest impressive features are the touch sensitive buttons lining the sides of the screen. They make operating the menus and all the settings extremely simple.

The NV24HD not only supports HDMI but also HD video recording. It records videos at resolutions of 1280 x 720 at 30fps. Videos are recorded using H.264 so a good amount of video can be stored as compared to some of the uncompressed video formats used in other cameras. We shot a 1280 x 720 resolution video tat was 25 seconds long, and it took up only 20 MB of space. The HDMI support means images can be viewed on large screens without a lot of quality loss.

As usual, there is one dial for selecting the modes and there’s another one that changes the coloration for the images. We fired test shots with all settings turned to Auto.

It was clear that the quality was above average. In a category where all the cameras were so closely matched, the performance and a little bit of design was to blame for its lowered overall score. We awarded it one of the best scores for the video quality. With its great compression, it also makes a good video recorder, and not just a digital camera.

For a camera with so many features, the design could be a lot better. The flash for example is just a simple cube that pops out from the top of the camera.

The build however is solid and great. Sharp edges could leave scratches to its finish though. A camera such as this is ideal for someone who wants to shoot, but doesn’t know how to get all the settings. The touch buttons definitely help in making things accessible.

Kodak Easyshare M1033

The M1033 is a 10.1 MP Kodak camera priced at around Rs 12,000. The camera has an auto feature that changes modes for the user. So if you get too close to an object, it switches to macro mode accordingly. This can be really useful for new users and for those who do not wish to keep changing settings modes manually. All the menus and options are kept as simple as possible. The interface is also designed with that in mind and the minimal amount of buttons are put on the camera.

The camera itself is compact and solid. The joystick planted on the camera is robust and a little hard to use. The camera supports 720p video recording at 30 fps, which is excellent for a camera. There seems to be no image stabilisation during the video recording mode which is a little bit annoying. The video is still very crisp.

Kodak continues to add many scene modes to choose from. The M1033 is no different. It too comes with countless number of scenario modes. Overall, it seems like a better camera than the M1063. It is just Rs 1,000 more than the M1063, but it does a lot more...and it does it better.