Canon Powershot A430 Review

The screen display in the Automatic record mode. Icons on the screen indicate single frame drive, auto red-eye reduction flash, Auto exposure mode. The image size is Large, quality is Superfine and there's space left on the SD card to take 108 more pictures.

When the color LCD is turned on and you half-press the shutter you will see which of the nine AF points (green rectangles) where used for the focus lock.

The SCeNe modes are: Portrait, Night Snapshot, Kids&Pets, Indoor, Foliage, Snow, Beach and Fireworks. These modes are pre-programmed to give you the best possible pictures for particular shooting situations.

This the Manual Record screen. Icons indicate ISO speed is 64, single frame drive mode, auto flash mode and the "camera M" icon indicates the Manual record mode. On the bottom is the image quality "S"uperfine and image size "L"arge and there's room on the SD card for 108 more pictures.

The FUNCtion options in Manual mode:

Record mode - Manual, Super Macro, Color Accent, Color Swap, and Stitch Assist modes
Exposure Compensation - Override the metering +/- 2.0EV in 1/3 steps
ISO Sensitivity Auto, 64, 100, 200, 400
White Balance - Auto, Sunny, Cloudy, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H, Custom one-push WB set
Drive Mode - Single, Continuous, Self-timer 10s or 2s, Custom Timer
Effect - Off, Vivid, Neutral, Low Sharpening, Sepia, B&W
Image Resolution 2272x1704, 1600x1200, 1024x768, 640x480, Postcard(1600x1200) this is a special 3:2 ratio mode for making 4x6 in. prints, Wide 16:9 HDTV 2272x1280
Image Compression Superfine, Fine, Normal

Record menu options for Manual mode:

AiAF - 9-point automatic AF point selection On or Off
Metering - Evaluative, Center, Spot
AF Assist Illuminator - On or Off
Digital Zoom - On or Off
Review Time - Off, 3 - 10 secs
Grid Lines - LCD framing assist lines, on/off
Date Stamp - Imprint date/time (only in Postcard mode)

The camera has a very respectable macro focusing mode with coverage from 5 - 47 cm (W)/25 - 47 cm (T), (2.0 in. - 1.5 ft. (W)/9.8 in. - 1.5 ft. (T)) in Macro mode and the Super Macro coverage is from 1.5 - 5 cm (W) (0.6 in. - 2.0 in) (W)

You can record movie clips with audio at 10 frames per second in 640x480 resolution or 20 fps at 320x240 resolution at 15fps. The maximum length of these movies is ~1 hour (max of 1GB per clip.) Movie clips are recorded in Motion JPEG format and saved as AVI files.

Movie menu options:

Mode/Size - Standard, Compact, Color Accent, Color Swap, 640x480, 320x240
White Balance - Auto, Sunny, Cloudy, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H, Custom one-push WB set
Drive Mode - Single, Self-timer 10s or 2s
My Colors - Off, Vivid, Neutral, Low Sharpening, Sepia, B&W