Canon PowerShot A1100

For countless years, Canons A series of digital cameras have continuously set the standard in the price/performance segment, bringing many higher-end features down to the masses as they come and go. Canon’s PowerShot A1100 has a legacy of greats behind it and thankfully it delivers the goods, again.

The Canon A1100 has a well built, quality feel to it, clearly using high quality materials. It’s reasonably compact, easily fitting in the palm of your hand and weighs just 155 grams (minus batteries and flash card). Feature wise we find a 2.5-inch 230,000 pixel LCD, 12.1 megapixel sensor and a 4x optical zoom lens with image stabilisation to help avoid blurry shots while on the move. It also has Canons DIGIC 4 processing engine and no less than 18 shoot modes with greatly improved ‘Easy’ modes with Scene Detection Technology for instant point-and-shoot gratification.

You’ll also find Face Detection, Face Select & Track, i-Contrast, Motion Detection and Auto Red-Eye Correction, too. The A1100 continues the A series tradition of power being handled by 2xAA batteries (supplied), good for about 125 shots. The Start up time is speedy, taking less than 1.5 seconds, and about 3 seconds to zoom from wide to long.

Performance is solid across the board and it feels snappy in use (no pun intended). A slight dink in low light conditions mars an otherwise stunning show. Colours and exposure levels are good, with no chromatic aberration and little barrel distortion. The images are also noise free at ISO 80 and 100 with 200 being acceptable. Noise does start to creep in at the higher ISO levels – perfectly acceptable at this price range.

The Canon PowerShot A1100 is a great choice for those looking for an easy to use point and shoot that can get the best quality images from very little fiddling in menus. Equally it has enough power user options for more advanced work. The A1100 is an all-rounder with much to like at its currently aggressive price tag.