Canon Powershot A3300 16 MP Digital Camera with 5x Optical Zoom (Black) (OLD MODEL)

I was Not expecting great battery life, I was hoping for decent, but oh how pleasantly surprised! Granted it was some years earlier since my last camera purchase, so maybe it's an industry standard by now. However, if you are as unaware of this new standard as I was or perhaps it is not a new standard after all, then let me fill you in. I took pictures all day long and the battery just lasted and lasted. I took hundreds of pictures and some videos, in total several minutes in clips and it still wasn't until the next morning when I had to pop in a new battery and put the original in the charger. I had ordered 2 replacement batteries because I was anticipating the need to change them often. However, one could easily recharge in the evening and be set to go with the same batt the following day. I would suggest one replacement is well enough, (unless you take zillions of videos). I never yet had to swap to the third replacement and only once did I have to swap to the second after the batt charged all night because I took at least a couple hours worth of videos. Now I rotate through all 3 of them and they all seem to last as long as the day of their first use.Now enough of batt life.The images the camera takes are bright, clear, you can set it to auto and have a perfect picture every shot or you can choose to do your own settings.Some of my favorite settings are the miniature and macro. There are many options and then options on top of those. There is too many to explain all and on top of that I still have yet to experiment with all the possibilities, which is surprising considering I had it for over six months now.I will say in auto it takes *Great shots all around* Night* Day* Close-Ups* Far away* Even flyby shots In the car*Even at times when I rushed to get a flyby picture I was surprised the camera at least 50% of the time captured a great image even though my jolting hands were likely giving the thing havoc. Mind you, it is best to expect to hold the camera steady, aim and take your pic, in that manner the camera will never fail to produce a wonderful picture.I will point out the only two downsides & one minor nuances that I can think of, while they didn't matter to me, they still may be issues important, or not, to you and thus it will help you decide to get or skip over this camera for yourself.When taking a video with a very bright light (like the actual orb of the sun) it tends to bleed right across the video in a thin streak. *Note this is not a concern for pictures, ONLY videos* I do not often have such a bright light in my video, so this was not a major concern to me. If you like to take videos of the sun, fires, candles or other bright lights you will be irritated by this.There are a few options to take night/dark area photos, one of these is the low-light option and it does not produce the sharpest image. But if you do not mind softer edges it will capture shots in what appears to be exact duplicate lighting of real life.This was not important to me, because I tend to like to use the flash in low light areas anyway and the pictures I tend to want without flash are of lights, which the camera does not need the low light to capture.Now the minor nuances is I had to adjust myself to the camera to enable proper focus by giving a little pressure to the shutter button a second or half a second before taking a photo. It was slightly off putting at first, but now it is second nature.The value of this camera for cost feels like a steal. I feel like I have a 300-400 dollar camera. As for the battery life, well it seems like the camera ends up paying for itself with the amount I have saved in comparison to the battery consumption of my past cameras.Very happy with this camera.*I want to Add; I read everywhere about this camera before buying, watched reviews on youtube, elsewhere and everything said was great (save for those picking on tiny things when comparing to much more expensive cameras). However, when it came down to it I almost was not going to buy this camera because of the Ridiculous claim of distortion by the other reviewer here on Amazon!!! To think what I would have lost out on! That review that actually in FACT DID NOT HELP the 199 people that said it helped cause they lost out on a great camera! We can assume the kindest thing and say that reviewer must have left the camera in the "Fish-eye" option, which is a playful option to make funny photos. (Honestly I think the whole review is someones idea of a horrible joke or a competitors idea of throwing people off the scent of a great buy, cause the fish-eye thing is pretty obvious to discover!) I found ZERO distortion in ALL the photos I took with this camera, other then the intended ones, as the fisheye does a funny barrel look, the miniature option fogs the bottom and top to make things look tiny, as edges are blackened to create a viewmaster sort of effect with the toy-camera option. As I mentioned above there are too many options and options to list. Anyway I am thrilled I ignored that review!!*

Great camera still takes good pictures after 15+ years

I gave up looking for a small super zoom camera that would be a good replacement for my beloved Canon T1i SLR. I tried the Panasonic DMC-ZS9, the Canon HX230HS, and the Fuji 505EXR. None came close to my SLR and I felt the price of around $200 for those cameras at the time were a bit of let down.I have now been using this little guy for about a month or so. It takes pictures a little bit slow but the images are pretty good. Now they are not SLR quality but at $100 I could not be happier. Very small camera. The 5x zoom is generally adequate for my uses (taking to parties, dinners, etc. to just get some good friend snapshots). I have not used the video mode much (it only has digital zoom in video and I am not sure why). However, the digital zoom (which I generally dread to use) gives you a decent additional distance on the telephoto end when taking photos.Since I use the camera mainly for friends/family at night time events, the flash photography was essential. So far, so good. Everyone was enjoyed the results which are not overexposed.Great little camera when you just don't want to cart around a kit with enough zoom to give you some flexibility to reach out and grab your friends. Aftermarket batteries are readily available and work great. Got two replacement batteries for about $5. At this price point, I doubt you will feel the need to keep looking.

My husband and I purchased this camera to replace an older Canon Powershot Elph that we gave away. We liked that camera and were sure that we couldn't go wrong with another of the same brand. Although the few pictures we took with this model looked fine, we will be returning the camera simply because it is just too slow. The shutter lag after you press the button is about two seconds, which is a really long time if you're trying to catch a candid shot. The camera also requires several seconds after it actually captures the shot before it's ready for another. This is, of course, a problem with all digital cameras to some degree, but this (newer) camera is noticeably slower than our old Elph. It's not a bad camera in terms of image quality, ease of use, or anything like that - it's just slow.

I bought this camera as a replacement for a Kodak 10mp camera thinking 16mp would be that much sharper. Boy was I ever wrong. I tried every possible setting trying to get a sharp clear photo even half as good as my cheap WalMart Kodak. But all I get is VERY grainy photos that will not enlarge at all. I contacted Canon and they said I should be getting clear sharp photos and would I please send the camera to them to check it out. In about two weeks I received a brand new unopen replacement. Nothing has changed. All photos are very grainy and I am stuck with a piece of junk. This is not my first digital nor is it my first digital Canon. My first Canon was a 6mp which made FAR superior photos than this one. These little cameras are suppose to be point-and-shoot and it shouldn't take a professional photographer to use them.

After days of searching for a replacement for my Kodak 12MP, I thought this was the perfect one. I assumed that 16MP would give me amazing pictures... BIG disappointment. My friend has a Canon 14MP Powershot and that one does take better pictures. After reading all the features this camera had, I decided to order 2, one for me and the other one as a gift. BIG mistake, the material is very cheap (plastic). As soon as I opened the box and felt the material, I immediately printed out a return label. It looks and feels cheap.