Canon A80/A85

I don't know how far behind the times I am in finding out about the A85, but
it does explain why the price for the A80 dropped by 30 GBP in June this
year when I got mine!

The bigger viewing screen is clearly an improvement, but it has one feature
that I would dearly like and that is the underwater mode setting. I presume
this adjusts the colour balance to compensate for the red loss. As someone
new to digital photography, what chance is there that Canon will release an
update to the A80 software that would include this facility ?

Rob

On Wed, 4 Aug 2004 11:14:44 +0100, "Rob Graham"
wrote:

I don't know how far behind the times I am in finding out about the A85, but
it does explain why the price for the A80 dropped by 30 GBP in June this
year when I got mine!

The bigger viewing screen is clearly an improvement, but it has one feature
that I would dearly like and that is the underwater mode setting. I presume
this adjusts the colour balance to compensate for the red loss. As someone
new to digital photography, what chance is there that Canon will release an
update to the A80 software that would include this facility ?

Rob


Rob,
to answer your last question 1st, I feel it's very
unlikely that they will add this underwater feature to the A80 via a
firmware update.

Now as to the A80 versus the A85, look very carefully at "all"
of the specifications & you will see that this is more of an A75
upgrade of sorts rather than an A80 improvement. In fact the A85 has
the same physical size sensor as the A60/A70/A75 (1/2.7"), whereas the
A80 uses the larger (1/1.8") sensor which should render a less noisy
picture if all other factors are equal. The A80 seems like a better
choice but this all depends on 1's needs.

Now if the A85 used the same physical size sensor as the A80,
this would make choosing much harder. Best way to keep up on what
Canon is doing is to check their Japan site, since they often have
product details & news there 1st!

As for the underwater mode, color compensation is likely or
"hopefully" not the only alteration that this mode provides however I
think most if not all could be corrected or duplicated with post
editing.

Respectfully, DHB