Posted By Laura in Review | 1 comment

Being married to a photographer, you’d think I wouldn’t get to take many pictures, wouldn’t you?

Not so. The husband doesn’t ‘do’ point-and-shoot compact cameras, and it’s simply not practical to take a gurt big SLR and lenses when you’re just walking the dog or off to the woods or to play cricket. Consequently, much of our day-to-day family images in my mahoosive GooglePhotos archive are taken by me.

For me, a compact camera is a must. I have an SLR, and I know how to use (most of) it. But I don’t think you can beat a camera that will slip into your pocket and come with you everywhere.

So when Canon offered me the chance to try out the new Powershot A3400 I was only too happy to do so. Particularly as we were off to Disney, and the use of a camera that hadn’t been dropped in a rockpool recently would probably be more reliable.

Ahem.

So – what’s to love?

The body is solid and chunky – despite its diminutive stature, this camera feels like it won’t roll over and cry at a little bouncing. It’s easy to get started – everything is intuitive (one of the biggest reasons why I love Canon so), and straight out of the box you can be snapping perfectly good pictures.
If you do want to move away from the Auto settings, it’s easy enough to change the shooting mode. When placed in Program mode you can touch the rear LCD to fire the shutter (this MAY have happened a time or two accidentally. Maybe.).
It’s also possible to disable the Touch Shutter and instead use the display to enable Touch Autofocus – watch the screen, tap what you want to be in focus, and then the clever camera magickery inside will track that object. This was genius for photographing the children (not sure if you’ve noticed, but they don’t sit still very often).

The range of the lens is good – though when zoomed in it can get less sharp (husband says it’s about half an f-stop slower on the telephoto end, and you’ll sometimes want a longer shutter speed or higher ISO setting. I say it can just get a leetle bit fuzzy when you’re zoomed in…).

The screen is mahoosive, vivid and sharp – for a teeny tiny camera it really is extraordinarily good. Though because of the big mahoosive screen on a teeny tiny camera, it does mean the buttons are a bit small for large man-hands. Not that it bothered ME any.

Anyhoo. The pictures. That’s what it’s all about. Here’s some of what I took – straight out of the camera with no photoshoppery involved except resizing…

For me personally, I found the camera a little limiting – I’d like more flexibility, more control and more power. But having said that the Powershot A3400 is a good basic camera – perfect for an undemanding user, great at quick snapping when out and about with the family, and a fabulous teens camera too.

One thing I’ve found with compact cameras like this is how easy they are to set down and forget: especially when you’re juggling bags, kids or coffee. A simple wrist or neck strap makes a real difference, and it’s where something like Custom Lanyards can be surprisingly useful. Being able to keep the camera close to hand, while adding a bit of personalisation, makes it far more likely you’ll actually use it – and far less likely you’ll leave it behind somewhere.