I always research before I buy. Suggested retail price for this cam is $199.99 according to the Canon website.

***

Summary: It is very easy to use and delivers great quality photos in a variety of situations with an absolute minimum of skill and zero talent.

***

About me: I bought this camera to take pictures of my daughter and my family. I am a very poor photographer with a good appreciation of photography, which is a painful situation to be in. In the past I have used a 3 mega-pixel camera phone, a Kodak camera in about the same price range, and then some Sony digital mini-cameras. I use this camera mainly indoors in medium light (energy-saving bulbs, late afternoon, overcast or raining). My approach is to take pictures early and often and hope for the best. I was looking for a camera that had great potential and that even I (read: one of the worst picture-takers you'll ever meet) could get some decent pictures with. I have never taken a photography course and never will, because if I have the time and money I will spend it on something I can hope to actually get good at. I think I am a pretty typical camera-buyer.

About the camera: This camera met all of my expectations. It is very easy to use and delivers great quality photos in a variety of situations with an absolute minimum of skill and zero talent, which is what I wanted from a point-and-shoot.

When the other reviewers say it doesn't work well in low-light, they mean, very low light, like this is not a camera for amateurs that want to do some good photography at night or in a room with only a 20-watt bulb. The flash works fine for the rest of us! I certainly have not had any light issues and we do not live in the brightest of houses or climates. I used the night mode for quiet times and the auto-with-flash for active night pictures and they turned out fine.

This camera is nice because it has two functions that help poor photographers in particular (in addition to other modes that probably help everyone equally): the kids and pets function, which allows you to take picture after picture in quick succession so you don't miss any action, and the auto function which provides a higher-quality picture. If I use these according to the recommendations in the user's manual, I can usually get 25 - 50% of my pictures of a moderate to good quality, as compared to an (imaginary) amateur photographer who actually knows what she is doing. That is compared to 1 - 5% of pictures using a camera phone or another cheap camera without these easy-to-use modes.

This camera is not so small that I lose it in my purse, which is a danger with tiny cameras, if your purse is anything like mine.

The stabilizer is also great since I take pictures while running after my toddler. I had considered buying the very cute Nikon in the same price range (the one that looks like a Brownie camera), but they did not have stabilizers, so I finally went for this one and I am very glad. The function works great.

One thing that they don't mention in the descriptions is that you do not have to switch between the viewfinder and the LCD display, like on some cameras. What I mean is that you can look through the little window like on regular cameras, OR at the big screen, like on digital cameras, all the time, without switching view mode. So you can switch from person to person without having to switch the view mode. This is great because my mother likes the viewfinder and I like the LCD. I also like to switch between them.

Another nice thing that I like is the ease with which you can switch from taking pictures to review mode to look at the pictures you took. It is a separate switch that you could find in the dark if you needed to. That is nice because I have deleted many a batch of photos trying to figure out how to get into the mode where I can review the pictures I have just taken.

The pictures I have taken with this camera are located at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rahimzade (this is an ad-free, non-commercial set of our family pictures). You can see which ones were taken with the Canon A720IS by clicking on the photo and looking in the right-hand column, and compare them with other pictures I have taken. As I have mentioned I have no skills or talent in this area so if you are someone who really wants decent pictures but are also a photo dunce who just wants a picture of your kid or grandkid, this would give you a good idea of what to expect.

(If you are an amateur or pro photographer, this review and those samples are not for you because you could probably do better with a camera obscura.)

I would certainly buy this camera again.

There are plenty of technical reviews allready on this camera and they convinced me to buy it and I have not been disapointed. So I will not write a long review, but just touch on some points. A big reason I bought it is the optical view finder which is disapearing on most cameras in this price range and I wouldn't own a camera without one. It is a great point and shoot camera with also a lot of good manual options. You can quickly use it as a point and shoot, but will need to spend some time with the owners manual to take advantage of the manual features. Some reviewers think it is too big, but I have no trouble carrying it in my shirt or pants pocket. With rechargable batteries and a 2G card, I have no problem with the recovery time. I saw a recent review that said you could only erase one picture at a time, this is not true, you can erase one at a time or you can erase all by going into menu.

If you want a point-and-shoot, and want some more advanced configurations, this is your camera! I've compared it to my friends' cameras of same category, and the pictures are really better (compared to a sony w-55 and a hp r937).

When in auto mode the daylight pictures are nice, but if you don't have a strong sun, I recommend you to adjust manually the white balance in order to avoid blueish tones.

The wide variety of ISO modes (ranging from 80 to 1600) is almost useless, as above ISO400 the noise becomes unacceptable. Instead of this, I recommend the aperture/shutter time priority modes in order to get a good picture with low light conditions. Of course the results will be quite different from the dSLRs, but the pictures remain pretty good for a point-and-shoot.

The wide selection of drive modes (multiple shots, 1~10, 15, 20 or 30 seconds of delay combined with 1~10 shots) and the white balance pre-defined options are nice features.

The face detection works very well too, and the stitch assist is a plus (but you'll need to merge pictures on a computer, using software supplied... hp r937 and kodak fz812 do this automatically on the camera.. I think this is not a big problem, as probably you will take just some panoramic pictures).

The zoom controls are great, and the 6x lenses are sufficient to regular pictures where you want to highlight main subjects. The movie mode is good (but if this is very important to you, consider looking canon S5 with stereo sound)..

The battery life is awesome... if you buy 4 AA rechargeable so you'll have no problems with this... I suggest buy the duracell 2650mAh ones. I took almost 2000 thousand pictures in 1 month and I am very satisfied as I didn't recharge the batteries a lot (I think I recharged them only 5 times).

Pros:

- good manual controls for a point-and-shoot;

- great zoom and zoom controls;

- good relation between pocket-size and sensor size (1/2.5") (for me this was very important when deciding between S5 and A720)

- Nice playback and video controls .. you can jump 1, 10, 100 photos, jump to next date, or just jump to the next video...

- you can change many configurations while shooting, this is nice when you are trying to get the best exposure through minor adjustments

- good focus options

Cons:

- you can just erase one photo per time or all in one touch (sonys allow you to select 3, 4, 5... how many pictures you want and erase them with one click - without 3, 4, 5 confirmations)

- sometimes you must adjust manually the white balance when in auto mode in order to avoid blueish pictures

- flash takes much time to recharge (4~6 seconds)

thank you and sorry for my english!

I purchased this camera awhile back and I'm very impressed with the quality.

My one and only complaint would be the massive amount of documentation that comes with it. I'm still using auto mode because I haven't gotten thru the pages and pages of info. The manual is 208 pages long, the English portion of the direct print user guide is 77 pages and the English part of the software guide is 88 pages. Too much information! I don't know if I'll ever learn how to use this camera. A quick start guide would be nice.

The little tidbit that you should format the memory card comes on page 56 of the manual. It should be at the front of the manual where it tells you how to install the card!

This is bad. I usually complain of tech stuff that doesn't have ENOUGH info. Not this time!

I am a semi-professional photographer. My main camera is a Nikon D70 with a number of Nikon lenses. I bought this to take with me when I don't feel like lugging the D70 around. (The A720 is lighter than even my lightest Nikon lens.) I researched compact cameras for many months and read dozens of reviews before deciding on this one. I am extremely happy with its performance and the quality of the images.

----------------------------

PROS:

----------------------------

* Very compact, light, and ergonomic. Great placement of dials and buttons. Intelligently designed menus. If you have any experience with digital cameras, this one will take about 10 minutes to learn how to use.

* Excellent exposure metering, contrast, and color. The exposure metering is far superior to that of my $[...] Nikon D70. The colors are beautiful, especially in vivid mode. Contrast is top notch. The highlights don't burn out and the shadows are true shadows, not mid-tones.

* Great manual controls: aperture, shutter, ISO, exposure compensation, flash compensation, saturation, contrast, focus area, even manual focus. When using manual focus, the LCD magnifies the section of the shot you are focusing on, allowing you to more easily get the focus just right. Great feature.

* Nice optical zoom (6x) to 210mm.

* Large f/2.8 at 35mm (f/4.8 at 210mm) aperture allows you to blur backgrounds nicely and take shots with small depth of field. This is great for portraits and artistic shots.

* Ability to focus as close as .39 inches. Good camera for macro shots.

* High quality, sharp LCD that is usable even in bright sunlight and when viewing at an angle. (Part of the reason I bought this camera was because it offered an optical view finder. The LCD is so good on this camera though, that I have not used the view finder at all.)

* Excellent battery life when using rechargeable AA batteries. (I haven't tried regular AA's.)

----------------------------

CONS

----------------------------

The problems with this camera are the typical ones associated with virtually every compact camera ...

* Slight color fringing when shooting backlit objects.

* Not as sharp as an SLR with a quality lens (of course).

* Noisy above ISO 100 and largely unusable above ISO 400. If you need to take quality handheld shots in low light, no compact camera is going to cut it. Get a digital SLR and a fast lens. (Sad fact: the sensor on this camera is only a hair bigger -- .75mm diagonally, or 8% larger -- than the sensor on my 7 year old Nikon CoolPix, and yet, Canon, like most digital camera makers, have stuffed 4 times as many pixels on this tiny sensor. 400% more pixels on a sensor that's only 8% larger. That means significantly smaller, noisier pixels. Because of this, my 7 year old Nikon CoolPix is less noisy at ISO 100 -- the only ISO it has -- than this Canon at ISO 80 or 100. Very sad indeed. This sensor overcrowding though is true of every compact camera now, so you just have to put up with it. The higher megapixels allow you to print larger prints and crop more, but you end up with more noise as well, even at low ISO's like 80 or 100.)

* Would be nice if it went wider than 35mm for wide-angle landscape shots.

I am a senior citizen and this is my first digital camera. The instruction booklet is easy to follow and the pictures I have taken are absolutely wonderful in clarity, etc. I have downloaded the photos onto "My Pictures" on my computer with Windows XP. Purchasing this camera via Amazon was a most pleasant and affordable way of obtaining a digital camera.

We are not pro or amateur photographers, just wanted a good general digital camera for vacations, graduations and the like. Never owned a digital camera before so I did lots of research on what digital cameras offered. We realized what was important to us is exactly what this camera offered. Better than average zoom, a viewfinder, runs on AA batteries, good quality photos, image stabilization (really works!), and small enough for purse or pocket. With all the other features that comes with it along with the ease of just point and shoot, it gives us the option of general use or more serious photography. After using it over the holidays, we are very pleased with our purchase and would recommend it to friends.

I was a professional photographer for over 25 years using many different film camera formats. I no longer work as a photographer, but still like taking pictures. Especially on holiday or when flying my paraglider. About 4 years ago I bought my first digital camera. It was the Canon A70. I bought it because it did everything including most importantly shooting in manual mode and being able to have good control over the flash output. I also liked the shape of the camera as it had a good grip making it easy to shoot one handed. That was especially important to me when taking photos while flying.

Over the last couple years I was starting to think that I wanted a more far reaching lens and higher resolution. I didn't want to go over 10mp though as cameras of that or higher resolution caused colour fringeing. I looked at many cameras. But none except the Canon had all my requirements. I thought 8mp was perfect. Also the 6x optical zoom was exactly what I wanted along with full manual control. Also the movie mode is great. In essence I wanted a camera just like the A70 but better!

Having used the A70, the A720 was very easy to get to grips with. And with the auto mode anyone could start shooting pretty quickly. With a little time spent with the camera and reading the manual you will soon be using the camera intuitively.

I think the lens is very good and that's the most important part of any camera. But I find most of the shots will benefit from a very minor tweek in PhotoShop curves. This will allow a greater degree of contrast and colour saturation. I also like to sharpen them up just slightly with the unsharp mask. I try to set the camera up to do as little of the latter as possible as I like to have that control.

The movie mode is really fun. When I go out shooting I like to take a combination of stills and clips. Then instead of making prints to put in a box under the bed; I like to make little movies of say my flying holiday in the Alps by combining the stills and clips, adding music, fades and titles all done in imovie on my Mac. I then burn them to CD and mail them to family and friends. Much more impressive than a few prints I think. The fact that the A720 can shoot at 30fps over the 15fps of the A70 is a great bonus. I can see I'll need to get a DVD burner soon.

The other nice thing about this camera over the A70 is that it is a little lighter due mostly to the fact that it requires 2 batteries instead of four. I'd recommend the 2gb SD memory cards. I bought two of them. I think this will allow two weeks of holiday shooting stills and clips. For the A70 I had two 256mb cards and I generally used one per week. The A720's higher resolution I think will require the 2gb cards.

Hats off to Canon for supplying a very picky shopper with a small, light and highly specced digital camera.

It's a great camera. I had an A550 but this is even nicer. Image the stabilization, bigger screen, higher res. This is a good buy. Canon makes quality stuff. Get the 2GB memory card and you can take over 500 pics at the highest resolution.