Cannon powershot A85.....

[Jeff_Favelle]

Its all about light man. Slower the shutter speed, the more exposure (brighter picture). So a shutter speed of 1/125 will be twice as bright as a shutter speed of 1/250. Meaning, the shutter is open for that much longer to expose the "film". F-stop (aperature) is how much light the iris (lens) actually lets in. Lower the number, means more light is getting in. The more light you let in, the faster the shutter speed you want because you don't want to overexpose the film.

Make sense?

[Tim_Cranwill]

Yes, it does. I knew what those two functions did, I just didn't know how they relate to eachother and which adjustments need to be made to compensate for this and that.

Thanks, Jeff!

[Jeff_Favelle]

No worries man. And now, no excuses either. LOL!

[Will]

Those pics look fantastic, Jeff. I just got a new albino boy from Marc, and he's just dying to have his picture taken. I can play with the manual settings on the A70 all I want, it's getting the little buggers to hold still for longer than half-a-second that's the toughest. Serves me right for choosing hondos, I guess...

[Jeff_Favelle]

Ha ha Hondos are the WORST man! I think its easier to photograph a fly on crack than a Hondo! LOL!

[Will]

So true, lol.

I can only be thankful I grew up in a digital age. No way you could get half decent shots on film...

[Big Mike]

Originally posted by RMBolton
You might have heard incorrectly. The A95 is only a slight step up from the A85 and the slight difference is in the resolution (5.0mp vs. 4.0mp). The body is exactly the same (the A95 has a flip out screen which I don't like) and the specs are almost exactly the same (save for the difference in resolution). Do a side-by-side comparison on dpreview.com...
Cheers,
Ryan

I love the side by side feature on dpreview... it's great.

I just did the A85 & A95...I found more than enough difference to justify the price difference. Forget about the extra mega pixel, that's a poor way to judge digital cameras anyway.

The Sensor is bigger on the A95. This is the most important difference, the bigger the sensor, the less noise you will get in your images. Especially at higher ISO settings.

The A95 shoots at 2.0 frames per second, up to 14 images. Compared to 1.5 fps up to 8, for the A85. Neither of these are great for sport shooting but the A95 is definitely better.

The A95 also has an orientation sensor, definitely an nice option.

The A95 is a step up from the camera it replaced...the A80. The A85 is a step up from the camera it replaced...the A70. This is what I was referring to when I mentioned the separate lines of Canon Powershot cameras.

From the looks of things. I would consider the A80 even better than the A85.

[Removed_2815]

Yes, you'll notice my use of the words almost and slight, etc. I could have mentioned that the A95 is 35 grams heavier as well but these kind of differences are only slight and not worth mentioning when the question of resolution had already been brought up by a previous poster. Also, take note that the larger sensor size is inherently included in my mention of a higher resolution. Finally, my recommendation to do a side-by-side comparison would allow anyone to observe these slight differences. There's also an ever so slight difference in the zoom capabilities.
Do you think Canon would justify the price difference based on 0.5 more frames per second (with a max of 14 images compared to 8) for the A95? I don't... They up the resolution in order to up the price, plain and simple.
The hallmark differences are the ones I noted and are what justifies the price difference.
Best regards,
Ryan

[Big Mike]

Point taken.

Some people might consider the differences slight & mostly trivial. In fact most users of this type of camera would notice very little difference for their uses.

If I were the one shelling the money...the differences would matter to me.

Yes Canon, does slightly up the MP count to raise the price. Most consumers (& sellers) of these cameras are all too concerned with the MP number on the label of their camera. Sensor size is a much better quantifier of image quality and not really tied to higher resolution. A bigger sensor with lower resolution (within reason) will yield a better image.

Whatever the differences, they have progressed through different lines. I have heard from someone who purchased the A85, thinking it was the upgrade from the A80. They were disappointed and planned to return it to get the A95. I thought this may be helpful for the original poster to know.

Stepping back, with all the cameras out there...there is very little difference and no need to debate the issue.

[Removed_2815]

Right, and as an aside, I wholeheartedly agree that people are far too concerned with the number of mega pixels - and this is what I hinted at before. Canon (along with every other camera manufacturer) understands this proclivity to purchase high mega pixel cameras because higher must equal better (in the consumer's mind). Manufacturers use this as a marketing ploy (higher mega pixels have a higher price tag) but most people don't realize that camera's are an artist's tool and you can have all the mega pixels in the world but, at the end of the day, you are the artist and a crappy picture can come from a high mp model just as easily as it can come from a low mp model. Most people use digital cameras for the internet and rarely "develop" images in excess of 11x14", thus making all these mega pixels extraneous. It's an easy incremental variable to base price differences on is all and everyone falls for it...
Cheers,
Ryan

[BornboreD]

I recently got a Powershot A75, and always used it on auto or portrait, and didn't like the photos I was getting. So after following this thread I decided to mess around in manual mode. I'm assuming that A75 is fairly comparable to the A85. Can someone tell me what it means when a negative number in red is appearing on the screen everytime you take a pic? LIke a -2 for example??

[Jeff_Favelle]

The number is the difference between the standard exposure and the selected exposure.

[BornboreD]

so is it a good thing that it shows up or not?

[Jeff_Favelle]

Depends on what you want out of the picture.

[hhw]

In my experience from editing photos for my school paper back in university, digital cameras these days have too much resolution :P I often shrunk photos just to be more flattering to the subject. Otherwise you could see every pore, every zit, etc...