I recently bought a Canon A710 IS for trips where I did not feel I would have the time or convenience to drag my SLR gear around. I use to have a Canon S500 for this but gave that to my wife. My most important requirement was that it be very small. I donʼt want size to be an excuse to not always have the camera with me. The problem I had with S500 was lack of manual modes and IS. Both made low light more difficult. I really hated not knowing that the S500 was shooting at 1/20 or 1/15. With the A710 I know what it is doing and the IS makes it a lot easier to get those indoor vacation shots that always seem to have too little light. I found movie mode is very handy also. Sometimes I want to capture the ambiance of a place while on vacation. It is often very difficult to do a place any justice with a few quick snap shots from a point-n-shoot. Even with my SLR, a collection of lenses, a tri-pod and a
lot of time it can be difficult. With the A710 IS I can just shoot a quick little panning movie with sound and have most of the feeling I want captured in a few seconds. An extreme example of this was my recent trip where I used movie mode while hanging on skywire between the mountains. Taking pictures while flying through the air hanging on a wire at 30-60 mph is not very practical and would not do the experience any justice at all but I got a couple of great little movies that really come close. The only thing I wish the A710 had was the ability to shoot in RAW mode. You can see some recent pictures I took with the A710 in Whistler Canada here:
http://www.pbase.com/lila161/whistler
Cheers,
Mark Rogers
Frame Destination, Inc.
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