Product Reviews

The A590 IS's name, specifications and price make it the logical successor to the A570 IS (reviewed What's New, Shopper 237), a camera we loved for its dependable image quality, 4x zoom, optically stabilised lens, comprehensive manual controls and low price. This new model makes the step from 7 to 8 megapixels. Performance remains impressive, although the use of two AA batteries limits flash recycling speed to around four seconds. The higher pixel count has taken a small bite out of the continuous speed, which is now 1.4fps.

There

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are some interesting additions to the camera's firmware. Face detection now bolsters white balance, focus, exposure and flash settings. The Hi ISO option uses motion detection as well as light measurements to pick the best ISO speed for a given shot. Red-eye reduction has been tweaked, too. It's hard to pinpoint how effective and useful these technologies are but, for whatever reason, the A590 IS produced expertly judged exposures time after time. There's no dynamic-range boost feature, but using standard settings, the A590's dynamic range was a little wider than the other compact cameras' this month. Noise levels at high ISO speeds weren't a patch on Samsung's NV8, though, and detail wasn't as sharp. Still, compared to most other 8-megapixel compact cameras, detail and noise levels were both respectable.

The A590 IS is an excellent budget camera, but Samsung's NV8 and Canon's own A720 IS take better photos. The two PowerShots are similarly priced and their raw image quality is indistinguishable. The A590 is slightly better at automatic shooting, but the A720's 6x zoom has a greater impact on the quality of photos.