My purchasing decision for the Canon Powershot A85 was most unusual. As a defense contractor (and 'part time' professional photog) and the owner of a Canon Digital Rebel - there are places and circumstances a large digital camera will cause unwanted and undue attention to be paid to one's self. My solution was a compact backup camera - originally a Canon A75 - purchased for its price and ability to share compact flash memory cards with the Digital Rebel. Things got more complicated when I purchased a Canon underwater housing specifically designed for the A75 while scuba diving in Aruba.

While the A75 is a "good enough" camera at 3.2 MP, I was looking to upgrade to a better backup camera - still at a price point - and distrustful of any underwater housing - a replacement backup camera. Amazon had a great price on the A85 - and the underwater housing for the A75 is an exact match for the A85. Enough said.

The A85 is lighter and has faster shutter response than the A75. The "feel" of this compact camera is "right" for my (large) hands. It takes beautiful daylight pictures. Its 3x optical zoom is "good enough" for a majority of my pictures - the 4 MP resolution allows additional enlargement and magnification with little loss of quality in Photoshop. Since many of my photo's are e-mailed to my family to prove I'm still alive when on assignment - large picture quality is less important - as most pictures are reduced in size for computer/internet transmission.

Auto focus and auto exposure in low light is still slower than I want it to be. Faster than the A75 - but still has an annoying delay setting up flash and auto exposure in low light.

Red-eye is still a problem carried over from the A75. The flash/lens positioning allows only a narrow angle of red-eye free picture taking.

You are going to have to purchase 2300ah NiMh rechargable batteries - or even two sets. I share 5 sets and three chargers (might be overkill for some) with my Canon 420 EX speedlight (used with the Digital Rebel), the A75 and A85 cameras. High heat or extreme cold are battery power sappers. Never want to miss a picture opportunity. I also share 1 GB compact flash high speed memory cards with the Digital Rebel.

The A75's plastic case easily scratches around the lens ring. I expect this with the A85 also. Buy a carry pouch that holds the camera firmly - and still has carrying capacity for a spare set of AA batteries. Dirt and dust have not been a problem - yet - although the camera case and lens mechanism need to be either vacuumed or airblown to keep sand and grit from interfering with the zoom mechanism. Sand and grit get into everything in many places I go.

Under most circumstances - the A85 performs brilliantly. Under water - or above - anywhere a full sized camera presents a problem - the A85 gets the job done.

I bought this one for my Dad as a gift. He made some pictures for mom's birthday, but it totally disappointed me. The image quality is not what I read review from somebody else. I used different Pix format, but it was same. Too bad.
I return the camera, and bought the Kodak EasyShare Cx7530, it is 5.0M Pix, but it is cheaper($199) than A85.
I really enjoy this one, very easy to use and with much better quality pics than Canon A85.

Murphy's law must have kicked in on this one. My Dad bought this for me as a wedding gift. We used it for the first time at my wedding. I just had the pictures developed, and they are blurry and grainy. I hoped it was the developer's fault. However, I pulled the pics up on my computer, and they look blurry there as well. I agree with a previous reviewer who said that she had a 2 MP Kodak that took better pictures. Mine did too, except it had a problem with shutting itself off for no reason.
I see where someone below also said that by figuring out how to use the camera, you can take professional shots. Our poor pictures are made on the auto setting, and the subjects of the pictures are standing still in good light.
I just hope someone else at my wedding had a better camera, with better pictues they can share with me. If you get this camera for a special event, please try it out before so you can make sure it works properly.

I got this camera for myself. I am a big fan of 35mm film but I must say that this does come close in quality for picture type. One reviewer has mentioned that his pictures were grainy. the manual says if this happens it is likely that the camera has been malfunctioning dur to dropping, or extreme temperatures. it has a lot of nifty buttons to impress anyone, and the best part is that it makes movie clips with sound. It comes with softwars to transfer photos and clips.

You can make a home movie when you add all the movie clips together with special effects and sound using the software that comes with the camera.
*****recommend getting at least a 128mb compact flash card 32 mb is not much. AND get rechargebale batteries with at least 2100mAh and charger to help avoid those unecessary battery drainage problems

I'm not sure why I am not as happy with this camera as everyone else seems to be. The image quality is grainy and not very sharp. I have a four year old 2MP Kodak that takes much better pics. (well it did, until it stopped working) I've done a lot of research and there always seems to be that one person on each user opinion section that has the same problems I do. I would think that if anybody would look at these pictures they would agree, so maybe one camera in 100 has this problem.

I'm just going to have to return the camera... these images are not acceptable.

This was the best present my husband could have got me. Love the pictures from my camera. The prints are awesome. I scrapbook and love the way the colors come out on my pages. The camera is medium ease to use so if you are an absulute beginner get someone who knows some about camera's to show you how to use it. My husband got some bad pictures because of user error, but after I showed him how to use it he was really pleased. I will continue to buy Canon I owned a Kodak before this no comparison on picture quality.

I got this camera for Christmas from my parents. I think it's really good for its price. The quality of the pictures are really good, and the zoom is decent. I go to a lot of rock shows, and it can get really hard to take pictures when you're in the mosh pit, but this camera is really good. And, somehow, I can stuff the camera in my pocket when I'm not using it, even though it is really bulky. And I love taking videos as well.

This is the second digital camera I have ever toyed with. The first one was a 3 megapixel camera that was junk in every way. The PowerShot is 4 megapixels. Does that mean it's better? With what Canon shoved into this tiny thing, I'd say a big yes. But to me, the resulting photo is more important than any bells and whistles.

Actually, I've been doing a tiny bit of research on this "megapixel" stuff, and I've had a few chats with the Senior Vice-President of IMAX Corporation (who else would understand resolution than the owner of a quality control business for large-format films?). Check this out. Simply put, a megapixel (defined as a resolution of a million pixels or greater) is actually a marketing scam. A 4 megapixel camera can be marketed as such (they refer to the CCD chip), while the actual image is taken with less than half that. In this case, the CCD chip works UP TO 2272 x 1704 pixels (3.8 megapixels); plus the final image is compressed. In the end, your beautiful photo isn't as beautiful as it could be. And even if it looks good, the company is lying through its smiles.

And advertisements press the megapixel and digital zoom issues while ignoring the relevant (at least AS IMPORTANT) issues: contrast, brightness, focus, etc.

Here are my opinions about some of the PowerShot A85 features.

Let me get a few quick things out of the way. The zoom (35mm - 105mm) is atrocious. Compared to a similar priced camera, the A85 cannot zoom, period, and the digital is pixellated and looks like someone did the mosaic effect on your photo.

The flash is super bright, but there is no automatic shutter compensation, so your subject comes out looking white-hot (great for some effects shots). I work around this, since most auto-cameras compensate for the flash resulting in extremely dark backgrounds.

The delay between pressing the shutter is annoying. It's not a large delay, but I've missed some good portrait shots because of this. (But I can take dozens of pictures for "free" as opposed to my film camera, which I now reserve for nature shots only.) There is a feature to photograph 8 pictures in a series within 1.5 seconds which would fix my problem. I'm just lazy about this one, though.

I have taken images with the camera in non-professional settings, and they come out looking pretty good! I've used some of these images on DVDs and watched them on TV and they look impressive on the screen. The colors of the original subject remain the same even on a television (blue-light). Keep in mind there is a difference between images on paper, and images meant to be seen on a monitor or screen. Somewhat of an amateur photographer myself, I would never resort to digital photographs just yet for a show, but I do use the PowerShot for website and DVD/TV applications, as well as pamphlets. (I find that, depending on the subject, a digital picture looks as good as a photo scanned into a computer, and saves me money and time in the process.)

The autofocus features are incredibly high-tech. This camera was purchased for its purportedly amazing macro feature, though, and this is sadly overrated. The macro is impossible to use and never works. Recently, I took a hike up a Colorado mountain into Alpine Tundra terrain and along the way I found a small group of Alpine Forget-me-not flowers. I am able to get serious macro photos with my 35mm and extension tube, while the PowerShot required some serious distance. The photos came out blurry (I took them anyway) even with different focal lengths and camera distances. I made sure the Macro Flower was on the screen.

Speaking of the screen, I have found it to still be pretty easy to see, even in sunlight. It's not so pixellated that I can't focus (meaning that it looks great) and it shows the exact photo area. I use it all the time, and I never use the little viewfinder, which is tiny in size, doesn't quite match the zoom frame of the digital screen, and has a horrible parallax problem (although I am used to shooting SLR cameras). There are no parallax correction guidance lines in the viewfinder, either; those never work anyway.

The auto shutter speed isn't great for shots of people moving or nature in which the wind is blowing or the subject is running away for its life from the photographer. However, I have some great pix of people talking and they're slightly blurry, and the effect came out as a wonderful surprise. I still use it today. Don't let this bother you, though. You can choose from 15 seconds to 1/2000 of a sec, though I never use this feature.

You can take movies up to three minutes (low res), or 30 seconds high res (640 x 480), the latter which looks nearly like true video when watched on TV. I spliced it up against Hi-8 footage (which I personally think looks better/sharper than single-chip miniDV), and the difference was negligible on a Sony TV. Sound is also recorded and played back.

You can take panorama pictures for however many photos you want (I made a 720-degree upward-spiraling panorama to awesome effect).

You can set the White Balance to auto, day light, cloudy, tungsten, two fluorescent choices, and custom: just aim at a colored object and press the set key. For example:
¤ Red wood gives a Matrix-like green result
¤ A lemon results in a power-blue color
¤ A green digital clock bathes your photos in darkroom red (you lose focus a bit)
¤ "White" computer screen (actually blue-ish) results in a nice orange filter
¤ A dark blue portfolio will give you a great yellow (nice for surreal outdoor shots)
Messing with the white balance works best if you set it with a colored light, rather than a colored object. You can also use these color features to play with contrast; then in a photo program, turn the image into black & white, and voila, a pseudo-Ansel Adams!

A silly thing, but you can change the start-up image (like on your cellphone) with a choice between Canon bluescreen, Morning Star, and Bird, along with theme sound effects (you can change these independently as well).

There are too many other little features that I never use. This camera would be, quite literally, perfect for my tastes if it weren't for a poor optical zoom, poor digital zoom, and macro. I'm a huge macro/telephoto fan, so I had to remove one star for these. Otherwise, it's quite simply amazing, the technology that's out there. I hate to think what a higher-priced Canon can do.

I bought the A85 last fall and, like several other Amazon reviewers, was disappointed by blurry photos. The odd thing was that indoor and/or closeup shots turned out OK, but outdoor/landscape shots would be out of focus.

A professional photographer I work with said, "Looks like the camera is having trouble focusing to infinity. Take it back." The Canon service center in Honolulu replaced the lens assembly at no charge (the camera is still under warranty) and now my photos are crisp and detailed.

The range of settings and controls on the A85 is great. You can shoot full Auto, or get more control with Program mode (my favorite) or use Aperture, Shutter or full manual modes. I get very good photos of my son's indoor band concerts (dark hall, flash off, tripod, long exposure), something that would have been impossible with my previous 2-megapixel digicam that had almost no manual controls.

I give this 4.5 stars, based on the fact I got a factory dud and that I had a twinge of buyer's remorse when, a few months after I bought this camera, Canon rolled out its A510/A520 series, which is a smaller, lighter camera with 4x optical zoom and uses only 2 AA batteries.

Bottom line: This is a very good camera, but the A510/A520 series might be a better deal (see reviews on dcresource.com or megapixel.net).

I purchased the Powershot A85 8 months ago and was very fond of my camera. It had all of the features I sought in a digital camera. The controls are very user friendly. It fits ergonomically in the hand. It captures sharp photos and made image taking a much better experience over any camera I owned before. HOWEVER, I recently got the "memory card error" message on my screen and lost all the pictures I took over the summer, including kids' baseball games, birthdays, and family vacation. I looked up the problem on the web and found many sites with customer complaints about this problem. Further, many of these customers referenced Canon's lack of help with the problem. I called Canon's tech support number and also got very poor service. What's the point of getting a digital camera if you lose your images and get no advice on how to solve the problem? I won't buy a Canon again.

We have owned this Canon camera for about 7 months now and we love it!!! The pictures come out great! We have not had one problem with it. We recently went away to a B&B and I took pictures of the B&B at night and they came out perfect!!! I wish it zoomed in closer, but all in all I love this camera!!

I've had this camera for 13 months, and I've been extremely happy with it for these 13 months. Very easy to use, with the "scene modes"; AA batteries, so you never really have to worry about charging, because you can have a few batteries at hand; never had to read the manual; very good picture quality, upto 8x10 prints; pops into any computer with USB.

But then, one day, after these 13 months, the camera errors out with E18. For all I can see, the camera is dead.
Search the web for "canon E18", you'll see that it is a fairly frequent problem, and there's even a class action suit.

13months for $300, that's not enough. My previous digical camera lasted 6 years. No more Canon compacts for me, I'm trying another brand...

I know some people have expressed dissatisfaction with the 'grainy' quality of the images. I guess it depends on what you are trying to do with it. I did some research, and this camera was recommended to me for what I like to do, which is take pictures of old buildings and sculpture. As it turned out, this camera was wonderful for that, because the pictures are very evocative. I took it on vacation and I liked the result of my nature pics, too. The photos have a 'softer' look that is a bit different from the usual 'hard' digital photo look, and it suits me. Of course if you are not looking for that, you might want to try something else. This might be a good camera for the more creative types.

I gave it four stars because this was only my first digital camera and don't have much experience with the others, but it is my cherished friend now because of the lovely photos it's given me.

This camera is a wonderful camera when it is working. Which after over the past 13 months of owning has only worked maybe 4 of those months. I finally packed it up and sent it back to canon. I still have not heard from them. I was told that it was errors in the hard drive from camera store techs. I feel that a name like Canon means Quality and Customer Service. This camera and company did not offer me either. I Do not reccommend this Digital Camera. It will break down.

I've owned this camera for over a year and I have gotten perhaps 2 or 3 decent photos from it. This could be a good camera if you are willing to spend 20-30 hours learning to use it, but I have no idea. I've spent several hours learning this camera and it is always able to come up with a new reason to "not work". The most user-unfriendly devise I have ever owned!

$600 dollars I spent in my first Sony SD40 camera long time ago. 3 years later I was still not able to take my desired pictures and still reading the manual to learn it's features.

With the Canon A85 I can take not only regular pictures but also, close-up using the macro feature, short movies and make my own posters.

For someone who is not a professional photo taker nor a photoshop pro user, this A85 is the perfect, affordable, friendly user and light weighted camera to own.

My 2 cents.

I've owned this camera for about 1 1/2 years. It worked great until 2 days ago. It fell off the top of my desk top computer (I was uploading pictures) about 16" off the carpet. After that it would not recognize the memory card. Tech said about $100 to fix.

There's no way a little bump like that should break a camera.

I have been using the A85 for about 9 months and have found it to be extemely easy to operate, takes wonderful pictures, and can fit in your pocket. I use rechargeable batterys which give me at least 250 shots between charges. I download right from the camera onto my laptop and make any adjustments using a photo shop tool. Aside for some red eye from the flash shots the pictures are perfect up to an 8x10. I am just shy of 2,000 pictures and 0 problems. I have ordered a new Canon Rebel XT as I have lenses from other Canon equipment and would like to go digital in an SLR. My little A85 will never be left behind. I have friends who have other digital cameras which have a higher megapixel than the A85 and the images are not as clear. You get good and bad in everything and believe me I got a great one in my A85. If something would happen to it then I would buy another one without reservation.

I've had this camera since 2004. Then recently a coworker got a Canon A460 and that got me to thinking that I wanted something new so I checked out some of the newer cameras like the Canon A550 and SD800. Eventually, I will buy the Canon 550 or 570 and give the A85 to my son regardless what's the hurry. Then I was looking at the A85 because I want to buy one for my mom for a overseas trip and saw the reviews on amazon so I thought I would share mine. This is a great little camera. I have taken excellent pictures with it. And I have had no problems with it. It is easy to use and I do have 2 sets of rechargable batteries.

I got this camara a few years ago and have been taking pictures with it ever since. They are high quality picture. The controls are easy to use. You will need to purchase rechargeable batteries to go with it though. I have had no problems with this camara. I only wish It had morte megapixels now.

I recieved this digital camera for Christmas back in 2004, and it so far been doing very well. The images I want come up nice a clearly (as long as my arms hold steady), and if an image does come out the way I want it to, I can use other options to retake the image (when doing still images). I do plan to one day upgrade to a newer digital camera for art purposes, but for a point and shoot it has done w good job. I have even dropped it a couple times when it was off, and the only problem that came from that is the screen slightly flickers lines through it, but when the image is taken the lines don't appear.

I have had this camera for more than two years and had absolutely no problems with the camera ITSELF. Sure, the extra battery charger that we bought for our rechargeable batteries failed on us, but that ultimately has nothing to do with the camera itself.
The only con I seem to find for this camera is that it is fairly bulky and heavy. I bought a soft case, so that decreased the problem dramatically, but I still felt like it should be lighter.
Anyways...to the pro's. Extremely user friendly. Easy to get around inside the camera and find the tricks of the trade. The quality of the pictures is really good as you can see the crispness and details of the face.

A great and perfect camera for the typical family/person who isnt interested in taking professional photos that will sell for thousands of dollars. A great point and shoot for the value.
Remember to buy separate rechargeable batteries and a much larger CF card. 256 MB was fine for me, but you can always get a 512. Anything bigger than that is not worth it unless you plan on taking thousands of photos.

Respect and care for the camera and it will respect you back with quality photos in a WORKING conditiong.

Good pictures, easy to use... until it just won't work anymore. After about 10 months of frequent use, the display would periodically get "grainy" and have lines and then finally the power on & off became very sporadic. When we researched the problem on-line, we found that it had been recalled due to a piece malfunction. We turned it in for repairs we were told that the problems weren't due to the recall and we'd need to pay over $100 to repair it. Since we'd had other family members who'd had the same exact problems, we decided to spend the $100 on a new Nikon instead.

Love this camera. It is my first digital camera and my first point and shoot.

The picture quality is great. Although you can now buy P&S cameras with better picture quality I'm still amazed at how good my pictures look, especially compared with the old SLR film camera that I used for years.

After three years of using auto mode I'm now learning about aperture and film speed and shutter speed - all of which can be controlled using Av, Tv and other such settings. I'm also starting to get very creative with the kinds of shots I take. This camera seems to be the perfect little tool for my small photo projects and combined with a bit of Photoshop I'm beginning to create some very nice arty photographs.

Highly recommended.