Canon PowerShot A590 IS 8.0 MP Digital Camera - Gray

The camera feels just right in the hand, especially with the side grip. I was surprised at the size of the camera, having been accustomed to a bigger and heavier 35mm with assorted lenses. This was the only difference and it makes the Canon a pleasure to carry. I had done extensive online research on digital cameras, utilizing consumer product guides and rating services, this was the best bang for the buck. Best feature is the view finder. The camera has more features than I could possibly understand, but I am reading the owners guide and taking a basic digital camera course to learn to finer points of digital photography.
Bottom line is I am thrilled with my purchase. I still have my Canon AE1 and some super lenses for special photo work. But my go to camera and daily user is the Canon PowerShot A590 IS.

PROS: size, design, printed manual, ease of use, flexibility, price, larager LCD than older models
CONS: haven't found any yet - haven't tested software

This is a power house little camera.

It has enough size to it to allow for a comfortable grip without being cumbersome. While it won't fit in a shirt pocket (What are you doing putting a camera in your shirt pocket anyway? Might as well just throw it on the ground and get it over with!) it's small enough to go wherever you need to take it with no hassle. I dislike the tiny new cameras as they are difficult to grasp if you're trying to do any adjustments to fine-tune a shot. Speaking of adjustments...

You have such versatility. You can go all AUTO or you can change a number of different settings to tailor your shot to the situation. While the MENU and FUNC buttons are Canon's standard easy-to-follow buttons, an added bonus is the printed manual that explains the functions in easy to understand language.

I chose this camera over the other Canons I looked at for two reasons in particular: 1) My hands shake a lot. The IS capability provides good correction for the shaking. 2) The A590 IS allows the addition of speciality lenses. I can pop on a macro and get stunning details on a hand-painted objet d'art or use a wide angle for large sweeping landscapes.

I've just begun to use this camera and will add to this as I find any significant additional information.

This is the last model of the line of this very popular canon compact digital camera.Its "full" feathered features (manual, shutter and aperture priority, optical view finder, optical stabilizer, etc) let a photograph-lover with tight budget can still enjoy the fun of creative photographing. Of course, the quality of photos and camera performance are in top of its category. That is why I bought a Canon 590A IS even it is a lightly used one.

Bought this camera basically for 4 reasons: to replace a great, but older digital camera which was 1) heavy, 2) had no zoom feature, 3) had low megapixal, and 4) used the harder-to-find and phasing-out larger and scratch-vulnerable cardreader.

I bought the Cannon PowerShot A590 is a great camera: came with substantial software package, a bonus 2MB card reader (compared to the standard 512), so you can snap 100s of extra, high-quality photos; it's compact, with a carrying case which holds any extras you might need, like extra batteries. Fantastic zoom, easy to understand operation, which also walks you through instruction right on the LED readout, so you don't need to carry the instructions, 8 megapixel feature equals better standard shots at much larger size, which is great for editing, leaving cropping options better (as you can lose lots of unnecessary background to get the main feature of your shot nice and close, without having to resize, which often causes blurring). Light-weight. Snaps multiple shots almost instantly, which is wonderful for moving targets and action shots. Features choices for many types of layouts, including wide-angle horizontal for wide angle viewing on TV or wide PC screens, like cinema format. Was able to use right out of the box, with initial set-up from box to use in less than 5 minutes. Came with mini tripod, cleaning products, multi-format card reader USB; cable for loading pics directly from camera to PC, and other extras.

The only 2 drawbacks, for me personally, were 1) the software for cardreader only had disk only for old Windows 98 (which made the cardreader useless for my purposes); and 2) uses 2 AA-batteries (which I prefer a rechargable battery, personally).

Otherwise, highly recommend this camera. Great value for a fine camera!

Although no longer in production, Canon's A590 packs a lot of features into a small camera. This isn't credit card size by any means but you don't get features like the ability to use common AA batteries, excellent manual controls, and even the ability to use 52mm filters without increasing a camera's size. Actually, I prefer a little larger compact camera like the A590 with its right hand grip and natural button layout. Picture quality is very good and 8 megapixels gives 300dpi resolution on a 8x10 print.

Optical viewfinders aren't that popular but in bright sunlight that washes out a LCD screen it's a nice way to line the A590 up on target.

In summary - a great little camera!