The Latest Canon Compact – Powershot A480

Canon have now release its latest digital compact camera, the Powershot A480. It is the replacement to the A470, but is 25% smaller than its older brother.

It also has a simpler button layout to make it more user-friendly. This is a budget level digital camera which packs all the technology you need to take great pictures every time. The Powershot A480 has a 10 Megapixel Sensor, 2.5 inch LCD, Canons new Digic III processor and also motion detection and Face Detection has been added to make this a great all round camera.

The Canon Powershot A480 comes in a choice of three great colours, and has a 3.3x Optical Zoom which is quite good for a camera at this level. Combine this with the 10 Megapixel sensor and you have a camera which takes superb shots every time.

The Canon Powershot A480 is superb for beginners and enthusiasts alike, with the technology to keep enthusiasts happy but delivering it in a user friendly easy to use format makes it a sure winner.

The DIGIC III processor also provides super low noise levels and Face Detection Technology to provide superb picture quality each and every time you press the shutter button.

Canon HF100 Camcorder – Canon’s first attempt at a Flash-based Camcorder

Today at Elite Gadgets we unwrapped the Canon HF100 Camcorder with a little hesitance. The first flash-based camcorder from Canon. Now, this isn’t a new technology but it is Canon’s first stab at a flash memory camcorder. And from what we have seen, they have hit the nail on the head.

Unlike it partner, the HF10, it doesn’t have any built-in memory, all footage is recorded straight to a removable SD Card.

Apart from this and the colour (the HF10 is Black and the HF100 is silver) it is exactly the same camcorder.

It is tiny for a horizontal based camcorder, weighing in at a measly 380g and measuring 73mm x 63mm x 129mm in size. Being a flash memory based camcorder cuts down drastically on size as it doesn’t have to house an internal hard drive or tape mechanism.

It packed with features. Camcorder enthusiasts will value the 25p cinema shooting mode, a microphone input and a headphone input. It also utilizes a very nice 1/3.2inch, 3.3 mega pixel image sensor to provide full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution images. These images are recorded directly to the memory card thanks to the new AVCHD compression system. We hooked this up to our Samsung Full HD 1080p LCD and the footage was quite simply breathtaking.

As with all HD camcorders we wanted to know how big a memory card we would need. Well, we managed to fit 2hours of HD footage on a 16GB memory card, so it’s not too bad at all. But is you are desperate for space it has three lesser quality record setting to get the most from your storage space albeit with a compromise on picture quality.

All in all, we were not disappointed with the HF100 in fact we were very impressed. It is as good as you can get in the camcorder market at the moment. The HD footage is superb when viewed on a Full HD TV, or even on a CRT monitor via the AV Connectors. The 2–channel Dolby Digital sound is brilliant, its looks and feels just great.

This new boy from Canon gets the thumbs up from Elite Gadgets!!!