The Canon PowerShot A580 undercuts the PowerShot 590 IS by $30 but lacks some key features. Is it a better deal?
Review summary of the Canon PowerShot A580:
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 Ignoring the existence of the PowerShot A590 IS, the Canon PowerShot A580 would be a great point-and-shoot for the money. Unfortunately, for our recommendation, the A590 IS does exist, it offers optical image-stabilization and possibly superior focus-consistency, and it retails for a trifling $30 more. If you're in the market for a Canon PowerShot at this price-point, we suggest collecting your loose change and going for the A590 IS instead. Release: March 2008. Price: $140.
Pros: good overall image quality, wide selection of ISO sensitivities, white-balance control.
Cons: Slow image-processing, tends to over-sharpen, some fringing issues, serious focus-inconsistency.
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Full Canon PowerShot A580 Review:
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Design - Good
The A580 has a sturdy build for a camera of its size and weight; not so much bulky as it is stocky and substantial, though still compact. It feels like a camera that won't fall apart with use. It's lightweight and reasonably small, though the body itself feels unduly thick and the grip along the right-front contrarily shallow. Batteries and the memory card are readily accessible and A/V connections are easy to find.
The LCD screen is nice and large, essentially as large as possible within the confines of the body, which contrasts heavily with the pointlessly tiny, optical viewfinder centered above it. We couldn't help but wonder if the camera (and, given the ubiquity of these pinhole viewfinders, all point-and-shoots in general) might be better served with no optical viewfinder and more real-estate for other things.
The A580 fits the mold of a standard design: an invariable zoom control surrounds the front-right shutter release; atop the camera is a standard mode wheel; and along the right are various menu controls and a selector to choose between camera and playback mode. Said buttons on the back are a bit small and jumbled and, in a rush, can be difficult to navigate; we felt that a small joystick-style navigator might have served the camera better, but admittedly would have increased its bulk.
Features - Good
While variable zoom is understandably unlikely on a camera this small, the zoom feature here is jerky and difficult to manage. It often zooms in and then haltingly zooms back out a bit, to the degree that the first half of the zoom-range progresses in piecemeal steps instead of continuously. Worse yet is the camera's sluggish processing. Expect a second or two between each photo, killing any chance for rapid picture-taking.
Unlike the A590 IS, the manual mode in the A580 only allows for selecting ISO, white-balance, and exposure compensation. While full-manual functionality is 'above and beyond' for a point-and-shoot camera, its absence here decidedly limits the A580's usefulness when compared to the A590 IS, which is positioned in nearly the same price bracket. Otherwise, the feature set is similar, including a JPEG compression setting (normal to superfine, which is appreciably lossless), face detection, and a wide range of selectable resolutions, including matted widescreen modes.
Like the A590 IS, the A580 offers a fantastic range of ISO settings, particularly a crystalline ISO 80. However, the ISO 1600 setting is, unsurprisingly, a sea of noise, making it largely useless for serious applications.
Interface - Very good
The A580's menu is intuitive and easily navigable, and all of the camera's settings are accessible within a few button-presses. It also comes with a few programs to facilitate uploading, editing, printing and emailing photos off of the camera's USB connection, and all work as they should via clean, easy to understand interfaces.
The bundle includes a USB cable, an A/V cable, the aforementioned software, and a few other filler CDs.
Image Quality - Very good
For a sub-$150 point-and-shoot camera, the A580 spits out quality photos. Its images are detailed, clear and reasonably colorful without looking overly processed. Granted, blowing the photos up to full size revealed, in most cases, a noticeable amount of noise; lucidity is best achieved at ISO 80.
Scene test
As demonstrated in this photo of a general scene, the A580's image quality is similar to its big brother, the A590 IS. Colors are well-reproduced (keep in mind this was taken on a drab, cloudy day), lines are distinct and well-defined, and automatic white-balance is spot-on. On the negative end, the A580 also shares the A590 IS propensity for slight oversharpening, which leads to a mealy quality along some edges; there are also some focus issues along the fringes of the lens, which are further detailed in the following samples:
Halo test for the A580
Halo test for the A590 IS
In this halo test, the A580 performs as well as the A590 IS: some fringing is evident along some of the branches (unsurprisingly, the ones backed by brighter patches of sky), but otherwise edge-distortion is really only noticeable at 100% zoom.
However, when inspecting the corners of the image, the A580 is patently fuzzier than the A590 IS. The specs of the two lenses are identical and ostensibly of the same make and quality, yet the A580's images are clearly coming from a more aberrational lens. Unfortunately, without another A580 on-hand, we can't say for sure whether these focus issues are characteristic of the A580 (thus implying that its lens is different, and inferior, to the A590), or whether our particular camera is merely the victim of random manufacturing error.
Macro test
The A580's focus problems also mar its macro-photography. Here, only patches of the image are in focus, and again the corners are all but a blur. In comparison to the A590 IS, this is disappointing performance. Overall focus is improved when using manual focus, as is preferable in macro-mode, but being a point-and-shoot camera, and given the A590 IS's far superior performance using auto-focus at macro distances, the A580's macro capability is subpar.
Flash test
As with the A590 IS, the A580's flash performance is suitable. In this sample there is little to no fringing or distracting noise in the darker regions of the background. There is some glare off the frontmost leaves - we've seen other point-and-shoots with variable flashes and soft / diffusion settings that would have better handled their reflective sheen - but all in all this is solid flash-performance for 'party situations.'
Price and availability
The Canon PowerShot A580 IS is available now for $150.
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