Canon PowerShot A540 review

However, when using the slow-charging built-in flash (effective for even coverage out to about 3.3m at ISO 800), between-shot pauses extended to 4 seconds during testing and almost 6 seconds in practice. (Flash-recycle time varies with battery type and capacity.) The red-eye-prevention mode only partially tamed red pupils in our test subjects. The A540 maintained a steady 2.3fps in continuous-shooting mode, regardless of resolution and with seemingly no limit to the number of shots.
 

Shooting speed in seconds
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Typical shot-to-shot time

Time to first shot

Shutter lag (typical)

Olympus FE-120

2.6 

4.9 

1.3 

Canon PowerShot A540

1.1 

1.9 

0.7 

Sanyo Xacti VPC-E6

2.3 

2 

0.7 

Casio Exilim Pro EX-Z110

1.8 

1.7 

0.6 

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S600

1.3 

1.8 

0.4 

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T9

1.3 

1.7 

0.3 

Typical continuous-shooting speed in frames per second
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Typical continuous-shooting speed

Sanyo Xacti VPC-E6

3 

Canon PowerShot A540

2.3 

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T9

1.5 

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S600

1.5 

Olympus FE-120

1.2 

Casio Exilim Pro EX-Z110

0.7 

Image quality
We like this camera's photos, which are quite good for its class. The exposure system tends to favour shadows at the expense of highlights -- dark areas have lots of detail, while bright areas wash out. We found less chromatic aberration than we expected with purple fringing around backlit subjects surprisingly absent. Flesh tones were often warm, but other colours were fairly accurate, if muted. Flash exposures tend to be a little warm, and automatic white balance sometimes produces reddish casts under incandescent light. As you might hope, noise levels were low at the minimum ISO 80 sensitivity setting and rose significantly at ISO 400, but the images were still tolerable when we boosted ISO to the maximum ISO 800.

The Canon PowerShot A540's image quality and full manual controls will no doubt appeal to advanced photographers looking for a backup to their dSLRs. At the same time, beginners will like the many scene modes and its full auto mode too. Of course, if 4x zoom isn't enough for you, there's always the near-identically featured A700 for just a little extra cash.

Edited by Philip Ryan
Additional editing by Nick Hide