Canon's inexpensive A-Series has two features specific to each model: full manual control and AA batteries. Canon A3100 has none of these.
Or could it be some kind of evolution in the budget camera market? Instead of manual settings, you get an intelligent automatic mode. You still have a software option, and you can work in it just as easily.
But you won't get access to aperture priority, shutter priority, or manual modes. There is no way for a budding photographer to learn from their mistakes.
And also for those accustomed to convenient AA batteries, Canon has used them longer than anyone else, but the lithium-ion battery is more compact. And the camera makers themselves make a big profit on every accessory they sell.
The only problem is that after about two years, lithium-ion batteries die suddenly and painfully. Maybe you will crash the camera or lose it before that. But this is no consolation.
With the Canon A3100, you get a DIGIC III image processor as well as face detection, ISO 1600, and red-eye reduction. And you also have a large 2.7-inch LCD.
The A-series seems to have evolved into inexpensive compact cameras, flat, handy, and easy to fit in a pocket.
Appearance and functions
Canon never seemed to pay attention to style in the A-series, but the cameras were well made and worked very well with them. The same is true for the Canon A3100. It also looks pretty solid.
The front of the Canon A3100 features a wide chrome ring around the 4x zoom lens that looks like a serious tool for capturing light. The focus assist lamp sits just above the microphone, with a flash on the other side of the lens. There is a large manufacturer's logo on the side of the hand grip.
The Canon A3100's body is thick enough to guarantee a good grip - but nothing quite like the grip of older cameras in the series, equipped with four AA batteries in the grip.
The top panel of the Canon A3100 has, from right to left, a speaker, power button, shutter button and mode dial.
On the right side, a rather large eyelet allows the strap to slide easily. A rubber cap hides the AV / USB port of the Canon A3100.
On the bottom, Canon has positioned the metal tripod mount in the center under the LCD, but not the lens, with the battery / memory card cover next to it.
On the back we see a 2.7-inch LCD with 230.00 pixels. All important controls are located along the right side of the display.
While the camera isn't as thin as ultra-compact digital cameras, the Canon A3100 isn't too thick to slip into a shirt or trouser pocket. It is thicker than a deck of cards and noticeably larger than a business card.
Control
The controls of the Canon A3100 should be familiar to anyone who has used Canon products, but more importantly, they are easy to learn for new users.
On the top panel, the right corner is occupied by a large mode dial. The power button is slightly above the surface. When shooting with the camera, you can constantly press the mode dial instead of the shutter button, even after several days of use. The button is so small because the zoom control is not made in the form of a ring, but a two-way button on the back of the camera. This is a tribute to subtle design.
The power button, to the left of the Canon A3100 shutter button, is flush with the top bezel, making it hard to find without looking at it, but again, it reduces the chance of accidentally pressing it in your pocket.
The zoom lever is located in the upper right corner of the back of the Canon A3100.This explains the curvature of the case as well as the location of all the buttons, which are centered on the right side. It's convenient, in fact, although it doesn't look like it.
A four-way joystick with Canon's traditional Function / Select button is located below the face detection and playback buttons. The play button turns on the Canon A3100 without extending the lens if the camera was turned off. They are all very pleasant to the touch. Below the joystick are the Display and Menu buttons.
The arrow buttons on the four-way joystick also have functions for setting EV, flash, timer, and focus mode. Smart mode provides automatic macro mode. While there is also an automatic macro in program mode, you can also set it with the focus mode option.
None of the buttons on the Canon A3100 leave a cheap feeling, everything works well. The joystick is made monolithic, and not from four tiny buttons. This makes the job much easier.
Lens
Canon's 4x optical zoom lens has a 35-140mm equivalent range. Add 4x digital zoom to that and you get to 560mm. Fortunately, the lens is optically stabilized.
The Canon A3100 displays aperture and shutter speed settings in recording mode when you press the shutter button halfway, but it won't let you set aperture or shutter speed. Your only control is to set the ISO value in Program mode.
According to the documentation, the maximum aperture of the Canon A3100 lens is f / 2.7 at wide angle and 5.6 at telephoto. Shutter speeds are available from 15 seconds to 1/1600 second (15 seconds to one second limited to slow scene mode). ISO options include 80/100/200/400/800/1600 equivalent.
Tests show the quality of the objective lens produces surprisingly sharp images in corners at wide angles, but very soft corners at telephoto. More typical for this level of optics is the presence of convex distortion at medium and wide angles, which is barely noticeable at telephoto. And chromatic aberration only occurs when the lens is wide-angle.
Modes
Without manual modes, this small camera is aimed at students or anyone looking to learn photography. In addition to a program that lets you adjust ISO, white balance, metering and select modes, the Canon A3100 offers intelligent auto and lightweight options.
Smart Auto mode analyzes the scene and shooting conditions to choose from 18 specially preset options. You can only resize the image and turn off the flash. This mode also has an undeniable advantage over the program in the form of switching to macro photography when the subject is very close.
Light mode (marked with a heart inside the camera) is even more limited, allowing only the flash to be disabled. You might find it handy if you're offering a camera to people who don't know anything about any cameras.
There are also several standard shooting modes and a dedicated scene mode on the mode dial. Scene programs are available directly on disk: portrait, landscape, night photography, children and animals, and indoors. Special scene modes are available from the function menu and include face detection, low light (with 2MP image size), super bright, poster effect, beach, foliage, snow, fireworks, and slow shutter speed.
Video is the last icon on the disc, allowing you to choose from three options: standard quality 640x480, 640x480 LP (with high compression), and 320x240 - all at 30 frames per second. None of them captures high definition. Sound is recorded and digital zoom is available.
Menu
Canon's controls and menus are easy to use once you get used to the structure (which seems to change slightly for each model). After selecting the recording mode, simply press the function button to see your shooting options.Press the Menu button to configure general camera settings at any time.
Image size options include 4: 3 aspect ratio 12-megapixel, 8-megapixel, 5-megapixel, 2-megapixel and VGA options plus a widescreen option of 4000 x 2248 pixels.
Data storage and battery
The Canon A3100 IS uses SD cards and can handle SD / SDHC / SDXC, MultiMediaCard, MMC Plus, and HC MMC Plus cards. A 4GB card will hold about 1231 JPEG images at large compression and image size. The same card will store about 32 minutes 26 seconds of high quality video (640x480 @ 30fps).
Instead of using AA batteries that were traditional with Canon's A-series, the A3100 uses its own NB-8L battery. The supplied AC adapter ACK-DC60 can be used instead of replacing the battery. The battery allows you to take about 240 pictures or play content for six hours.
The battery can be inserted upside down, but the cover will not close completely. So before trying, make sure the battery is flush with the compartment and not slightly raised.
Image quality
Image quality checks show that the PowerShot A3100 IS makes a slight shift in several colors: yellow towards green, red towards orange, and more noticeably cyan towards blue. But overall the colors are bright and pleasant. The rose in the image looks natural, without the oversaturation found in most consumer digital cameras.
Noise, as in most cameras in this class, is not noticeable up to ISO 400, if you use higher values, the image becomes slightly softer.
Shooting
In general, the pictures of the A3100 IS are very pleasant, better than many of their classmates. Image quality has always been one of the strengths of the A-series and it's nice to see that it hasn't changed.
What's especially nice about the Canon A3100's Auto mode is that it automatically enters macro mode when the camera is close to a subject. This is very convenient when, in the process of shooting, you often have to move from general shots to detailed display of small objects. There is no need to check the camera settings every time.
The low light scene mode allows you to take good pictures in difficult conditions. Pictured above is the interior of a 1966 Chrysler New Yorker. The flash was turned off in the program, and nevertheless, the result was quite decent.
But there is a pretty big difference between the two images. The size of a regular image is 4000 x 3000 pixels. The low-light image is 1600 x 1200 pixels. Canon A3100 combines adjacent pixels in low light mode to reduce image noise.
Conclusion
Pros:
Compact, well-built
4x optical image stabilization zoom
Good detail with a 12MP sensor
Decent 2.7-inch LCD
Intelligent Auto analyzes each scene to select the correct settings
Good indoor auto white balance
Face recognition
Very good macro mode
Good shutter lag time
AF-assist illuminator
The flash charges faster than the latest Canon A-series AA batteries
Very good print quality in its class
Inexpensive.
Minuses:
The lens is not very wide angle
Wide Angle Convex Distortion
Soft photos in telephoto mode
No manual mode or exposure priority
Slow continuous shooting (0.8 fps)
Low cost AA batteries are not used
Battery capacity is slightly below average
No HD video
No optical viewfinder
The PowerShot A3100 IS has Canon genes. Everything works as easy and simple as you'd expect. And the results - image quality - are pleasantly surprising. Many will say that the A-series is not the same. Apparently, the time has come to move on, the company correlates with the market requirements. But what remains unchanged is the pleasure of working with Canon products.
