GRRR I was pissed when I saw this come out. I bought a A640 2 months ago. My wife left our old A80 out in the rain and while it still works the LCD is messed up. We needed to replace it and while I really wanted IS there were no models available that have the flip out screen that our A80 has and we loved. We couldn't wait as we needed a good camera before our trip to Germany that we just got back from a couple weeks ago. This A650IS is the perfect camera that I would have wanted had it been available 2-3 months ago. I never noticed motion blur in my pictures from our A80 but that was only a 4 MP camera. Our A640 is a 10MP and I did see it on a few pictures. The A650 IS is a 12MP and adds Image Stabilization as you know and a little more optical zoom. The blur that I can see and assume is due to not holding the camera still enough I think may be partly due to how much higher the resolution is. Also I was shocked with how big the pictures were. At max resolution my image files are between 4-7.5 MB each. That eats up some serious space on the storage cards. I went to New Egg and picked up a 4GB SDHC from A Data. It got some bad reviews but most were from idiots that don't understand that a regular SD reader or non SDHC camera cannot use a SDHC card. It is a new format. Anyhow this memory was really cheap and is very fast. I think with the card formatted it shows that I can take something like 850 pictures at 10MP. I also used the video mode more on this trip. While the sound isn't very good the picture quality was pretty darn good for a point a shoot camera.
Here is my review of the A640
Love:
Love the AA batteries. Many people hate them but I am getting about 400 shots on a set and am warned after about 300 that they are getting low. If I am traveling I can get AAs anywhere or use rechargeable batteries.
Picture quality. It takes some great shots. I also like the macro mode as well as some of the others such as wide screen as I have a wide screen monitor.
Rotating LCD. Love it... This is why we went with the A640. It would have been the A650IS had it been out.
Hate:
LCD. While it is nice and big the resolution isn't what it should be. I had several shots that looked fine on the LCD bud were blurry when downloaded.
Auto focus. I had more difficulty with the auto focus on scenery shots on this trip. This was also made worse because of the low resolution of the LCD. In the end if it was a shot I really wanted I would take the same shot a few times in auto and manual modes. That way one of the shots would turn out well. This isn't possible always though.
Good points you make. If you want to get a leg up on what coming out in digital cameras I always follow the
DC Resource page. There are several others out there but I am used to this guys reviews and they are extensive.
The blur you see is the wind moving the little stuff around primaily. What I really like about this and the G9 is the 3 selections for focus. There is a AIAF (9 rectangle), a center focus and Face Detection focus. I used the center focus on the Macros here all shot under Auto. The center focus allows a quicker shot in that whatever you put in the rectangle and half press the shutter to a green rectangle is in focus. It's a no brainer. You can also get as close as .25" on a shot in Macro.
The A650 eats up some card. I am shooting everything in Large pixels 4000 x 3000 and turning down the compression to Large / Fine rather than Superfine. I have done numerous test shots on tripod in natural and artificial light and cannot tell the difference between Large / Fine and Superfine compression, of which the latter is highest compression. In shooting under the one lower I am saving minimally 1.5MB per picture. In full Pixel / Compression this shoots all photos above 5MB per picture. Or 91 pics on a 512MB card vs. 151 pics on the same card at the resolution I am shooting at. So it saves alot of card and I cannot see any difference even when I blow every shot up. I have 2 - 4GB Sandisk SDHC cards so I am covered regardless. I have enough room for an hour of video at the highest setting and over 1000 pictures as well.
My Canon A95 is a great camera, no complaints there at all. I was getting about 300 shots per recharge in Ni-Cads (Energizer E2's 2500 MAH) along with reviewing and editing. This camera is definitely more efficient though. Right now I have taken 422 pictures as of today and about 10 minutes of video with gobs of reviewing in between, mostly test shots in getting use to the camera to prepare for future trips. Amazingly I am still on the 1st set of batteries.
