Canon Powershot A580

The A580 includes an 8 mega pixel sensor, a 2.5 inch LCD, and face detection. And while it found this camera's features and image quality to be good, kept asking myself why anyone would purchase the A580 over the similarly priced, more feature rich, A590 IS.

There's nothing wrong with the A580, but the A590 IS is simply a better camera, while still being budget friendly at $179.99.

Sharing the same boring, bulky design as the A590 IS, the A580 is too large to fit in the average shirt pocket.

On the back of the camera, conveniently located next to the LCD, is the main control center, whose function button lets you change white balance, ISO modes, and resolution, among other settings.

The mode dial on the top right of the camera offers access to a multitude of shooting modes, as well as auto mode and five of the 12 scene modes (the other seven must be accessed through the LCD while in scene mode).

The shutter button and zoom lever also sit atop the camera and can be reached with your right forefinger, making it easy to hold the camera with one hand. The small 2.5 inch display leaves room for an optical viewfinder. Although the LCD is bright and clear for framing images, you'll need that viewfinder in bright, direct sunlight.

With its 4X optical zoom and 5.8mm to 23.2mm lens (35mm film equivalent: 35mm to 140mm), as well as f-stops ranging from f/2.6 to f5.5, the A580 provides a good overall package but again, this lens is also found on the A590 IS.

Face detection has been improved from the previous model, the A560. Previously, when a face was detected, white balance was calculated for the entire scene now it focuses on specific faces in the scene. With a more accurate white balance configuration, faces were more vivid and focused, and the lighting was better.

With face detection disabled, faces tended to be muted, and the color wasn't as accurate. As with the A590, low light shots displayed noise at about ISO 100 and higher, although it wasn't bad until about 400 or so. Though the ISO settings go all the way up to 1600, it would recommend staying at 400 or below.