My old faithful Canon Powershot A80

Yes, I am still using the old Canon model of Powershot A80. it has been so good that I am very satisfied with the quality of the photo and thrustworthy of it. I bought this camera since May 2003 and it has been with me for 4 years. This four years, this old faithful have gone thru a lot. it has been touch by many. More so, during one of the time when my friend was using it, the camera was dropped from the from the upper floor to the hall in my house, rolling and crushing thru the staircase. But it survive, as thought it was singing I will survive from the fall.

It has went through twice replacement of mechanical part of gear when my zoom lense jammed This prove how much I used the camera. It been to so many place with me, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, Thailand and Cambodia. It was so good that I decided to buy a new 2Gb CF card last month.

But finally last weekend, the shutter door finally shut, seemingly telling me my time is up.

Now I am looking for a new camera. I am wondering about a new camera to get. It has to be quick as I am getting married this November... why you A80 died on me now? I am running thru the idea of getting a dSLR camera or maybe a semi-pro such as Canon Powershot s5 IS or maybe a Canon Powershot G9. But I have in mind too Olympus SP-560, Sony DSC-H9 or maybe a Panasonic Lumix semi-pro line.

Canon Powershot S5 IS

Canon Powershot G9

After all the searching and browsing online, I have narrowed down to Canon Powershot S5 IS or maybe a Canon Powershot G9.

First is the Canon Powershot S5 IS. This camera caught my eyes because of the design. I love the solid feeling holding the camera with the curve on the right side of the camera. More so, I am a strong supporter of using AA alkaline battery. I won't need to buy one of those Li-Ion battery which cost a bomb, and for a student, that will cause a BIG hole in my pocket. All I will need to do if the battery runs out is to go a store and buy 4 new AA battery which will last me that day.

Notice the vari-angle LCD screen and the hand grip

And this camera comes with a rotating LCD screen. I LOVE rotating screen. If you have not use it, you might wonder why I need it. But once you used it, you wont want to part from it...

The vari-angle (270') can be flip and turn into conventional screen.

This camera give you a function of near full dSLR camera. There are few extension lenses that can be fix to it.

Next will be the Powershot G9. This camera is on the higher end of the semi-pro camera. It comes with a wide LCD screen but it can't rotate. Furthermore, this camera have to use one of those li-ion battery which you can't simply find a use-and-throw battery from the store. What I love about this camera is that it have the waterproof casing for me to use, when I go diving. Furthermore, this camera comes 12.1 mega pixel and 6x optical zoom. More is that this camera save your picture in RAW format, allowing you to edit the picture later in TIFF or JPEG format. This will helps not to compromise the quality of the pictures for final editing.

Look very solid and yes it feels very solid too

The LCD screen is big. and it comes with the hot shoe for extra flash

Notice the two knob for the shutter speed and the mode. I love these.

But, the shutter release button and the zoom button is too small. Do see that this is a 12.1 megapixel camera. The powershot G9 lack of the grip too. This camera is just too square-ish -la. Look very old and conventional.

Both will use the SD card. And yes, they can use MMC and those tiny card too. But, they dont use the CF card anymore. What a waste! Anyway, I am going to the Canon Digital Fair next week to check it out!

Do you have comment? Do recommend if you have any camera that you prefere and let me know why?