Canon A3000 IS Camera Review

The Canon Powershot A3000 IS is a decent point-&-shoot digital camera for the casual snap-shooter on a budget.

Let's start off with the pros. It bears the 'Canon' name (which is pretty much the dominating brand in digital cameras these days). The controls on the back are pretty much straight-forward classic Canon, very easy to use. There's a separate button that turns face detection on and off quickly and conveniently. Scratching won't really be an issue in regards to the body of the camera. The mode dial is located at the top of a tower-like structure dominating the right hand side, rather reminiscent of an DSLR's design. The playback button can be used to turn the camera off and on as well. The smart Auto mode is pretty cool, but most compact digitals offer some variation of it nowadays. It does, however, use optical image stabilization, which is decent. It takes fairly decent photos outdoor (see below for raw example).

Specs-wise, it's a pretty basic camera. 4x optical zoom, 10.0 mega pixels. Basic Canon functions, nothing to get too excited about. Also beware that there's no optical viewfinder. A quick Google search will yield specs stats, so I won't go into too much detail with that.

And now for some of the not so great things. It seems to have trouble shooting indoors, often opting to up the ISO, which then results in noise being fairly noticeable. The pictures in general just don't seem to come out quite as crisp as my old Canon Powershot S400 4.0 megapixel camera. Shutter-lag and shot-to-shot times tend to be on the slow side as well.
So all in all, for the casual snap-shooter, sure, the A3000 will probably suffice. It's plastic, it's simple and it's not particularly compact, but it doesn't cost a whole lot either. If you're planning on shooting a lot indoors or want super-crisp photos, spend the couple extra bucks and maybe get a higher valued model though.