Canon 710IS is my first digital camera. Bought in Pune at around Rs.18, 000/- with carry case, rechargeable AA batteries, charger, connectivity cables and extra 1 GB card thrown in as part of the dealer’s offer.(camera comes with a 16MB card, quite inadequate).
It has got 6x optical zoom which is far better than the usual 3x found on most compact cameras. Though I was not much critical about the megapixels this one gives you 7 MP(as it has nothing to do with image quality and just allows you to print larger images without distortion, so even 4MP is fine). The display is quite large at 2.5 inches and with an optical viewfinder as well for use in bright sunny area.
Video shooting is crisp and smooth, giving 8 minutes of movie at 30 fps and 640x480 resolution with sound, but which will eat up the whole 1 GB card as the storage format is AVI which takes lot of space. You can do 1 hour recording by choosing 320x240 at 15 fps but I did not find it much useful.
The camera provides good food for the enthusiast at the same time working as a simple point-and-shoot camera for my wife who isnt a bit interested in the myriad settings. The IS stands for image stabilization which compensates for last minute shaking by moving the lens using a tiny builtin gyroscope to give even beginners a sharp picture.
There are lots of modes for shooting pictures, with priorities for shutter speed, aperture and different settings for auto white balance etc. I have spent hours experimenting with different modes and settings. One thing I would recommend for serious people is to invest in the portable stand because other than the auto-mode with flash setting, even the slightest shake gives blurry pictures(which is true of any camera) and in these modes even IS feature can’t help you to eliminate the blurr.
Initially, I wanted to go for the Canon S3IS for its 12x optical zoom which is tempting, but then at those specs the camera ceases to be a compact and because of the increase in overall size, there are less chances that you will always carry it along with you everywhere, also at Rs.27, 000/- it was completely out of my budget as a first camera.
Canon supplies two cables with the camera, one USB with a cool ZoomBrowser utility on the CD which allows you to download photos and movies and do anything with them once they are copied to your PC. You can also set the camera sounds from your PC(startup, clicks, timer etc) from various themes! The another cable directly connects to the A/V port of your TV set so that you can preview photos and play movies directly off your camera!
For serious amatuers on a tight budget who want to experiment with photography using a digital camera, I would definitely recommend this one.