With so many choices, how did I end up with a Canon A540? Read this review, learn some interesting things, and see how you, too, would end up making the same choice. With the price now below $200, it is hard to beat the A540.
CRITERIA
I had been using a Canon PowerShot A40 for several years and was happy with it except for the many times it would have a problem figuring out the exposure or autofocus and would take several pushes of the shutter button and changes in the focal point of the shot before the camera would take a picture. Even when the first try worked, the A40 would have a delay (called shutter lag) of about 1.5 seconds before it would take the picture. This seems to be a problem that was common with the earlier digital cameras. I decided to begin looking for a new camera because I had read that the newer ones were much faster and more capable of taking a shot the first try. In addition, many of the newer cameras had a larger LCD screen, which would make it easier to take and view pictures. I should note that despite the above shortcomings, the A40 did take excellent pictures.
Even though over the years the megapixel count of digital cameras has steadily increased, I had found the 2-megapixel capacity of my A40 to be fine for viewing on my computer and for up to 8x10 inch printouts. I wanted a new camera that would give me the option to save pictures in the 2-megapixel size (1200 x 1600 pixels) if I wanted to save memory chip and hard drive space.
I wanted a camera that uses AA batteries instead of proprietary rechargeable batteries because on vacation I am often far from a source of power and I need the option to use a couple of regular AA batteries should my rechargeable AA batteries give out. I wanted manual adjustments should I have a situation where the automatic setting doesn't work well. In addition to still pictures, I wanted the ability to record up to 5-minute long movies with sound. I wanted to be able to hear the sound when reviewed movies on the camera. I wanted at least a 3x optical zoom. Finally, I wanted a regular optical viewfinder should I be in a situation where the LCD screen is not easily visible, such as direct sunlight.
CAMERA SELECTION
Armed with these criteria, and a price point of about $200, I began my research of professional reviews and user comments. My research told me that Sony, Panasonic, Olympus, Canon, Kodak and Samsung were the most reliable brands. I dismissed Sony because they use a proprietary memory stick, whereas the other brands have pretty much standardized on the use of Secure Digital (SD) chips. Many of the other brands were lacking one or more of my criteria, especially a viewfinder or manual adjustments.
I decided on the Canon A540 for its large 2.5" LCD, better than average 4x optical zoom, AA battery capability and movies with sound limited only by what will fit in 1GB. Further, the Canon A540 had a lot more manual adjustments than similar priced models from other manufacturers. Every professional review I read gave it top honors for picture quality and features. User comments were substantially positive, with the only notable negative being that the LCD could be hard to see in bright sunlight, a common problem with digital cameras, including my old camera. Some users also complained of short battery life. I found a solution to that concern. See the Battery Life section below.
WHAT IS INCLUDED?
In the box with the A540 you get a USB cable to connect it to your PC for downloading pictures, an AV cable to connect it to your TV for picture viewing, a wrist lanyard, a 16MB Secure Digital chip, a set of alkaline batteries, a CD with software and a set of manuals. The 16MB chip is way too small so I bought a 1GB chip, which will hold about 1,700 of the 1200x1600 pixel pictures I usually take in the fine mode. For those times when I need higher resolution, I can go up to the full 6-megapixel 2816x2112 pixel size but will only get 600 pictures on a chip. There are two manuals, a quick-start version and an advanced version. Though the manuals are comprehensive, their style may take getting used to because they merely list each feature and the settings that are available but don’t always explain when or why you would use that feature.
The included ZoomBrowser EX software provides easy downloading and photo organizing. It also has some useful photo editing features that should satisfy the novice, including trimming, redeye removal, and the ability to adjust levels, color, brightness, sharpness, and the tone curve. A “My Camera” feature allows you to change your camera’s startup image and operational sounds. I set up my A540 to display my name and phone number upon startup to increase the chances that my A540 would be returned should I ever lose it.
The included ArcSoft PhotoStudio software provides a lot of photo editing capabilities, but advanced photo editors will want to use Adobe PhotoShop Elements instead. Since I already had Elements installed, I did not install the PhotoStudio software.
USING THE A540
The A540 is a compact camera, not as small as the subcompact cameras but small enough to fit into a shirt pocket when the lens is not extended. The slight bulge in the case to accommodate the batteries actually makes it easier to hold the A540 in your right hand. If you steady the camera with your left hand, you have to be careful to not place a finger over the flash in the top front corner. You can pick up the camera, turn it on, set the shooting mode, adjust the zoom control and press the shutter release button all with just your right hand. Turning on the camera automatically opens the built-in lens cover.
The menus are brought up by MENU and SET buttons and selections are made with a rocker switch. The control markings are clear and you can figure many things out by just going through the menus. Some of the more advanced features will require referring to the manual.
A thumbwheel on top allows you to select many shooting modes:
Movie mode -
Several choices, including 640x480 pixel, 30fps, all with sound.
Stitch Assist -
Line up shots for stitching into panoramas.
Scene mode -
Choose from night snapshot, kids & pets, indoors, foliage, snow, beach, fireworks, underwater, color accent, color swap.
Night Scene -
Uses flash, but keeps the shutter open longer to get more background.
Landscape -
Optimized for landscape scenes with near and far subjects.
Portrait -
Blurs the background and makes the person stand out.
Auto mode -
Fully automatic. In this mode most manual settings are locked.
Program mode -
Automatic shooting, but with access to manual settings.
Shutter priority (Tv) mode -
You choose a shutter speed between 15-1/2000 sec and the camera will pick the correct aperture.
Aperture priority (Av) mode -
You choose an aperture between F2.6-F8 and the camera will pick the correct shutter speed.
Full manual (M) mode -
Full manual control of all settings.
The LCD will show the changes in the picture as you adjust the controls. Sometimes it was hard to see any difference between the scene modes and just leaving the camera in Auto mode. For most users, setting the camera to Auto will suffice.
The 2.5-inch LCD is a nice improvement over the smaller screens of the past. However, the A540’s LCD is only 85,000 pixels, whereas competing models had up to 115,000 pixels. That means the pictures you review on the LCD will look less sharp than they would on other models, even if the actual pictures on the chip were identical. This wasn’t a problem for me and most users will not notice the difference. If you think this would be a problem for you, compare the LCD with competing models at the store before you decide. The LCD washed out in direct sunlight. I could frame my shot with the optical viewfinder, but had to shade the LCD with my hand to see menu choices or review a shot. There are inexpensive LCD shades available if you do a lot of outdoor photography. As for that optical viewfinder, it only shows about 85% of the area of the actual picture so you can’t frame your shots as accurately as you could if it was more accurate.
The A540 USB interface is USB 2.0. I was able to download 400 of my 1200x 1600 sized pictures per minute. This was substantially faster than my old USB 1.0 card reader. The A540 prints directly to any PictBridge compatible photo printer without needing a PC. I don’t have this kind of printer so I can’t comment on this feature.
The self-timer mode allows you to put the camera on a tripod and set it to take a picture in a preset number of seconds so you can get yourself into the picture. The continuous shooting mode allows you to take a series of shots in succession.
Shutter lag, the time from pressing the button to the time the picture is taken, varied depending on whether the lens was zoomed in or out. When zoomed all the way in, the lag was 1.2 seconds. Zoomed out it was 0.4 seconds. Shutter lag all but disappeared if I first pressed the button halfway to get the automatic focus and exposure settings, then pressed the button the rest of the way when I was ready to shoot. The big difference from my old camera was that the A540 always took a good picture no matter what I aimed at rather than the “Huh? What?” attitude of my old camera.
In those cases where automatic focus has problems, you can switch to Manual Focus and set it anywhere from 3 inches to infinity. If you find that you often don’t hold your camera level and get crooked shots, you can turn on a grid that shows on the LCD to guide you. The grid lines do not show up on the finished picture, just the LCD during shooting.
Flash recycle time, the time from when you take a flash picture to when the camera is capable of taking another picture, ranges from 1 to 10 seconds depending on how powerful the flash needed to be. The wait seems longer because after the shot review time the A540 turns off the LCD screen during the remaining flash recycle time so you can’t be setting up your next shot until it is done. If you need to take flash shots in quick succession, such a long wait may be a problem for you.
The A540 can take pictures from ISO levels of 80 to 800 in five steps, but any setting above ISO 200 will be progressively noisier. Once again, this is a characteristic of digital cameras and not a particular weakness of the A540. The ISO level is set automatically in Auto mode, but in the manual modes you can set it to get the best compromise between quality (lower ISO settings) and sensitivity (higher ISO levels). If you don’t know about ISO levels, just leave the camera in Auto mode and it will chose the best compromise depending on the light level of your subject.
I checked optical distortion (bending of the picture) by shooting a blank spreadsheet on my computer monitor. Zoomed in fully, there was no noticeable distortion. Zoomed out fully, there was moderate barrel distortion, which means the lines bowed out a bit at the top, bottom and sides. This is not uncommon.
IMAGE QUALITY
So, with all these features, how do the pictures look? I took hundreds of pictures outdoors, indoors, zoomed in, zoomed out and macro (extreme close-up). All outdoor shots had very good focus, exposure and color. Most of the indoor shots were very good, especially close-up pictures with flash. In macro mode I got good pictures down to about 3 inches from the lens without the flash. The flash was too bright for pictures any closer than 12 inches.
Without the flash (or flash pictures with portions beyond 12 feet) some pictures were noisy or blurry. This was because of the higher ISO levels and/or slower shutter speed needed. This would be true for any digital camera and not a shortcoming of this particular model. The trick is to not just point and shoot, but to frame your shot, press the shutter button halfway to focus, make sure that the green focus/exposure indicator is on your intended subject, and then press the button carefully to complete the shot without shaking the camera. A flashing red icon in the LCD display lets you know when the shutter is slow enough that camera shake may blur the shot. A trick to use in this case is to set the self-timer to take the shot so the camera doesn’t shake when the shutter releases. If you do a lot of low light pictures, you may want to opt for a more expensive model with image stabilization.
Movies recorded in the standard 640x480, 30fps mode looked fine, but not as good as video from a regular camcorder. Though you can zoom during recording, the movie zoom is digital and the zoomed-in portion looks noisy. Movie sound recording was fine. The movie feature is great for capturing a short video in those cases where you don’t have use of your camcorder, but it isn’t a substitute for it.
White balance, the ability to show white correctly under different lights, worked well in the automatic mode. If necessary, you can set white balance manually with the usual selection of light sources. A custom white balance mode lets you shoot a white surface to set the white balance.
I tested color balance, the ability to show all colors correctly, by photographing a paint chip sample book. All colors looked fine except purple, which would show up as blue on the A540’s LCD screen. At first I thought this was a problem with this particular camera, but some research told me that all point-and-shoot digital cameras have a problem with purple because they make their colors by blending red, green and blue. I double-checked this with my old camera and my wife’s old Canon S-200 and neither showed purple correctly. However, when I downloaded the A540 pictures to my PC and looked at them on my computer screen, the purple was more visible - though not as fully as the actual subject was. So, it appears that the A540 LCD screen shows less purple than the actual pictures have. I don’t know if this is a shortcoming of the LCD screen or the circuitry that feeds it. Keep this in mind when shooting purple colors. Some cameras may show purple better on their LCD, so if that is important to you bring something purple to the store when trying out cameras. Regardless, you can see more purple with your eyes than what any digital camera can record.
BATTERY LIFE
As claimed by Canon, I found that regular AA alkaline batteries did provide about 90 mostly flash pictures with the LCD on. Canon says I should get 360 shots from NiMH rechargeable batteries but when I tried a slightly used, but freshly recharged, set of NiMH AA batteries, the low battery indicator would flash after just 10 pictures. I connected the A540 to an external power supply and tested the voltages and found that the battery warning light comes on at 1.1 volt per cell and the camera shuts off at 1.0 volt per cell. According to a test I found online, about half of the 14 different NiMH batteries tested dropped to less than 1.1 volts per cell early in their discharge cycle when supplying the high current needed by a digital camera. In the test the Sanyo eneloop batteries stayed above 1.2 volts and had the added advantage of keeping 85% their charge after a year on the shelf. I tried a set of Sanyo eneloop batteries and was amazed to get 438 pictures from one charge! So you can disregard claims of low battery life on the A540 if you use Sanyo eneloops. A new set of Energizer 2500mAh batteries worked pretty good, too, giving me 300 shots.
I also measured the A540’s current draw and found that with the LCD screen on the camera draws 400 mA and with it off it draws about 80 mA. According to Canon, if you keep the LCD off and use the optical viewfinder, you can get 1,000 pictures on a set of rechargeable batteries. Keep that in mind if you are trying to extend battery life.
ACCESSORIES
When you buy a new camera, you soon find yourself buying accessories. In addition to rechargeable batteries and two 1GB SD chips, I bought a Case Logic TSC-3 carrying case, a perfect fit with a separate zipped compartment for an extra chip and two sets of batteries. To protect the LCD screen from scratches, I applied flexible clear plastic Invisible Shield from Shieldzone.com. They do not sell an exact fit, so I bought the one for a 3” LCD and trimmed about 1mm from each dimension with a razor blade after I applied it.
Unique for a camera in this price range and size, Canon makes many other accessories available, including close-up, wide angle and telephoto lenses, a high-power external flash and a waterproof case. These items are quite expensive, some costing more than the camera itself. I didn’t buy any of these.
CONCLUSION
The Canon PowerShot A540 represents an excellent choice in a small, but fully-featured, reliable point-and-shoot camera. It has the advantage of an optical viewfinder a higher zoom level and more manual controls than most competing brands. The excellent Canon lens provides good picture quality. Battery life is average and the LCD has a lower resolution than average. Flash recycle time is longer than average. I would recommend this camera to the casual point-and-shoot photographer as well as to the expert that wants the added manual controls.
If you want to read more about the Sanyo eneloop batteries I mention above, visit
http://www.epinions.com/content_309637189252 
