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| Brand: Canon
Category: Photography
Buy New: $219.00
New (12) Used (5) Refurbished (2) from $170.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  291 reviews
Sales Rank: 1868
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: Yes
Floppy Disk Drive: None
Optical Zoom: 6
Display Size: 2.5
Battery: 2 AA
Maximum Focal Length: 34.8
Minimum Focal Length: 5.8
Maximum Resolution: 8
Has Red Eye Reduction: Yes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 3.8 x 2.6 x 1.6
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
MPN: A720IS
Model: A720IS
UPC: 013803084092
EAN: 0013803084092
ASIN: B000V1VG2E
Release Date: September 11, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 compact A720 IS PowerShoot November 2, 2007
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
This is a small, compact camera that easily takes great photos in auto mode. If you add lenses, the flash may leave a shadow. Without flash these same daytime indoor photos with a lense can be easily adjusted by accompanying software to be great photos. Without lenses, indoor photos are great with flash. I upgraded from an Olympus C2000 which I always thought took great photos. The Canon A720 IS is about 1/3 its size and blows those photos away in detail and photo quality. I also love the 6 x optical zoom. The 6 x optical zoom, mini movie mode and ability to add lenses is why I purchased this model. My Olympus C2000 was only 3 x optical and many cameras fool you with digital zoom which is lame. The stock SD 16 mb card takes 4 photos in medium so make sure to order a large quantity(up to 4gb) fast SD card, fast in case you want to take a mini movie which I have not yet tried. moderately priced, great photos . . . LOVE THIS CAMERA!
Small Wonder November 1, 2007
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
Looking for a compact camera that does it all? Try this little Canon. With it's 6X optical zoom, 8MB quality, Image stabilizer, optional manual control and small size, this baby has it all.
I am not a photographer so what I find most appealing is the automatic nature of the camera. But I have friends who do "know cameras" who have looked at it and marveled at the options available in such a small package.
Good price, quality product, ease of use . . . equals a great value.
 Canon PowerShot A720is Digital Camera October 24, 2007
36 out of 38 found this review helpful
I have owned, or given as gifts, the Canon A520 and A540 PowerShot cameras, similar but older. When I needed a replacement, I decided on the A720is, a like camera. I was thoroughly satisfied as to price, features and quality. It is so confusing to figure out if Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Fuji, Olympus, etc. is better, so I bought a familiar, but improved product. Don't regret it, either! One caveat: Whatever you buy, be sure that you get a rangefinder window, however big the LCD. Why? Because when a bright sun is behind you, the image in the LCD becomes washed out and invisible, and you will desperately need that rangefinder window to figure out how your photo will appear, and what will be cut off.
Canon A720 IS comments October 21, 2007
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
I recently purchased a Canon A720 IS camera via the internet and returned it to the dealer because the viewfinder was extremely blurry and unusable. They replaced the camera but the viewfinder in the new one isn't much better but I can live with it. Other brands are crystal clear so don't know why Canon cant furnish a better quality one. As far as the camera itself is concerned, it is great. I love the features and functions.
 look elsewhere for use indoors or with kids October 11, 2007
229 out of 312 found this review helpful
This camera isn't a good choice for indoor pictures, or images of kids. It has only two AA batteries, so you can expect long delays after using the flash. And nearly all the preset modes have a slow shutter speed, so pictures with motion will quite likely be blurry. Manual configuration is an option, but unfortunately you can't make the shutter speed faster without taking full manual control. I also saw a HUGE amount of blurring in many of the still pictures I took, and I'm not sure if it was something endemic to this camera (e.g., IS kicking in unnecessarily and blurring things rather than smoothing them) or simple "lemon" factor in my camera, so be aware that the latter might or might not still be an issue, even if you can live with the first two items.
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[the long version]
I was so excited to get this camera with image stabilization and face recognition, because old camera would occasionally take blurry action shots, and I didn't like the recharge speed. Unfortunately, this camera simply doesn't cut it on either point, despite the rave reviews I've seen on every site and in Consumer Reports. I'm told this is because I commit the cardinal sin of using the flash regularly plus an occasional zoom.
This camera is actually worse than my 6-year-old Canon subcompact for speed. After pressing the shutter down, I wait a full second or more... enough so that I'm tempted to press the shutter and THEN say "one, two, three." And then I have to wait at least 6-8 seconds (unfortunately I'm not exaggerating; persists even with different batteries, different memory cards, and different quality settings) before I can take another shot--long enough for the cute moments to be long-since finished, so there's no way I can get a second shot of the same cute moment :(
The inability to take a "second chance" picture is an even bigger problem because about one out of 3 pictures is crazy-blurry... enough so that you can't recognize my daughter even though she's just 5-8 feet away and the only person in the picture (e.g,. taking a picture of her Halloween costume, indoors with good light coming through the window). Even a close-up of my daughter and infant son together shows her beaming at him, and his eyes streaking across a four-inch span. Granted, he -did- move, but he's only 4 months, and that's sort of expected! Apparently this is because nearly all the various mode options (including "kids and pets"--there is no "sports" mode) have a slow shutter speed. (And yes, you can configure a faster shutter speed, but only if you're willing to take full manual control, which I don't have the time to do while playing with kids.) For those pictures with no movement that were insanely blurry, I wonder if the IS was kicking in when it didn't need to (possibly combined with the bugaboo of slow shutter speed). Who knows--either way, my other cameras take great, non-blurry shots, and this one doesn't. In fairness, the the camera -did- tell me to use a tripod... but that icon never turned off, period. And as a mom of a 3-year old and a 4-month old, it's ludicrous to think I'd be carting a tripod around with me just to take pictures of my kids! Incidentally, when I tested the same model in a store, the same thing happened--the icon never turned off.
Another quirk I noticed while trying to get good pictures is that the facial recognition is, well, silly. In one picture of my daughter, it zoomed in on her neck rather than her face. In another picture of my son in a bouncy seat (which is a solid off-white), it focused over one shoulder, so as I pressed the shutter down halfway to get it to pick a new focus, it selected a spot over the other shoulder, then on his belly, and then cycled through the same choices again. Another shot of my daughter focused on the tile behind her (pale gray with white grout), and another selected the (solid, off-white) wall rather than her face. Ummm... and my children are quite photogenic with typical features, so it's not a case of them being Picasso-esque so as to confuse the camera! (Incidentally, I've since noticed other reviews of Canon cameras saying things like "about half the pictures I took at Thanksgiving were blurry," which I had previously discounted.) I partly wonder if it's a software issue, since the camera would fade into and out of focus, until settling on unfocused... but then presumably other people would have noticed the same problem as well, so who knows...
Despite all of the above, convinced that the problem was me, I tried several things:
* different memory cards (including high-speed ones)
* different megapixel settings
* different ISO settings
* different mode settings (everything except "fireworks" and "snow scene"! ... as mentioned, there is no "sports" mode, and "kids and pets" astoundingly has a slow shutter speed... as do most of the other modes)
* different batteries (including lithium and NiMH rechargables)
* turning the IS off temporarily
* turning the facial recognition off temporarily
* using the viewfinder (my preference) versus LCD screen (since it gives you more information)
* taking pictures of things other than my children (the camera DID take beautiful pictures of my dresser and the shampoo bottles in the bathroom)
* testing another 720IS at a local store, where maybe 1 in 8 pictures was blurry (not as bad as my own camera, but at that point, ANY blurring in a shot was going to make me huffy)
* mixing and matching most of the above (admittedly less so on the camera in the store than my own)
A reply to my review recommends taking a photography course, but I have a master's and husband has a PhD, and if all of the above don't cut it--let alone the whole idea of "point and shoot"!--this camera is REALLY not for beginners or busy parents trying to capture those cute, fleeting moments.
So the manual and other reviews I read do make the camera seem pretty cool, plus you can configure things a million ways and sideways... but that aside, I need a point and shoot that will quickly take pictures in focus, and this simply didn't do it.
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