PowerShots for Everyone

For the better part of a decade, Canon PowerShot A-Series cameras have offered a respectable set of features at an affordable price. Excellent resolution, sharp Canon optics, and quality handling have made the cameras extremely popular with budget conscious shutterbugs. Though never quite as compact or sleek as the Digital ELPH line, the PowerShot A-Series has always been renowned for capturing high-quality images with ease.

The film of the digital age - memory cards - were dealt their biggest hands ever at CES even as two leading camera manufacturers seemed to abandon their largely proprietary formats in favor of the emerging SD card standard.

What camera companies don't promote in their new product announcements at CES can speak volumes. Sony, for example, introduced new cameras and camcorders that instead of incorporating its proprietary Memory Stick Duo card format contained slots for SD or micro SD cards.

While the camera does most of the heavy lifting, it's always good to grab a few 'essentials' as well as keeping in mind some of the more useful products and the market designed specifically for P2 technology.

The most important accessory for the HPX300 is clearly its P2 card. The cards come in three flavors; 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. With two 64GB cards, the camera is capable of recording up to 2 hours of AVC-Intra 100 footage. When using the camera's DVCPRO HD 720/24pN mode, users can record over 5 hours of footage without ever changing a tape; shoot the entire day and never offload! How cool is that?

Video cameras seem to be getting more and more complex, which can be a blessing and a curse. Even the basic "record-your-son's-football-game" camera seems to have features today that were unimaginable only a few years ago. Sony now has a camera that can detect whether or not someone is smiling. Sounds more like science fiction to me. While these new features can be useful in a variety of ways, getting the best possible footage is always paramount. The truth is that the most critical settings are always the most universal. They include white balance, shutter speed, and audio levels.