My elder brother bought this camera a couple of weeks back after doing some research into various other cameras available in the 8 Mega Pixel range as most often he goes on official tours throughout India for Clinical Trials and wanted a camera with full manual control of shutter speed and aperture (and manual focus if possible), something capable of shooting in low light (which means an image stabilized lens and high ISO capability), a decent zoom range, good image quality and at reasonable price.
The A590 IS has 8 megapixel sensor, 4x optical zoom lens (35-140mm), 2.5 inch LCD screen and an optical viewfinder present and correct. New features for 2008 include blur-reducing Motion Detection Technology, Face Detection White Balance, Face Select & Track for tracking moving subjects, and Auto Red-Eye Correction when taking a picture and offers an Optical Image Stabilizer for blur-free photos, full manual control over exposure with aperture-priority, shutter-priority and manual modes, plus an extensive range of optional lens accessories.
It can record videos at 640*480 resolutions at 20fps. The video quality is comparable to handycams. It can record video at this resolution for almost 32 minutes with the 1 GB card which came free with the camera.
It has 4x optical zoom compared to the 3x optical zoom 8 MP cameras available and then it has the much talked about image stabilization feature which prevents blurring of the picture and in general most of the pictures taken were crystal clear along with Manual Controls.
The pictures can be easily transferred to the computer.
Even though the price of this camera on various online websites was much cheaper (ranging from Rs. 8, 599 to 10, 000 ); but we were not willing to take the risk of buying online as quality of online products is not assured
Conclusion: All cameras have their shortcomings and everyone has their own preferences on features they find important, I found the A590 to more than fit my needs. The quality of its output is very good/excellent for a camera in this category. Images are sharp and saturation very good. There is a wealth of control over what the camera records. The image stabilization system is very effective. Focus and exposure are consistently good. Extreme highlights occasionally blow out, but that’s indicated on the histogram display and is easily corrected by shooting again with a little negative exposure compensation. For the price (INR 9100 from Alpha Market) I think it’s quite a bargain.
If there were a wish list it would include a RAW mode or maybe an uncompressed/unsharpened JPEG mode and an easier to use picture review mode. The final big plus are the many useful accessories available so that the system can grow to fill future needs.