Is a Canon Power Shot A570 worth repairing?

[Soakedlontra]

As someone who has been using a pair of A570 cameras for stereoscopic imaging for years, and who will be going to the Red Sea later this year, I just bought a Canon housing for one of the cameras on Ebay. I was, therefore, very interested to find this thread.

Since I am not (yet?) much of a diver, I'm expecting a steep learning curve as I try to make some useable underwater images... (Which is why I'm not planning to invest hugely in the enterprise!

I do have a couple of experienced underwater photographers as friends - one is a professional, the other makes housings, so I'll get some help from there, but I'm also going to be trying to pick up tips on here

Bob

Buoyancy control is really important and don't forget to check your gas ! It is so easy to get totally focused on the camera and the subject that in no time you may end up being low on gas without realizing it.

The buttons in the Canon Housing tend to get sticky. Lately I have been really fussy about soaking it in fresh water and regularly pushing the buttons after every dive. So far so good.

The camera can take great macro pictures even with just its own built in flash but unless you have strobe lights it is a bit more problematic to successfully expand that range, especially in the cold water of the Pacific Northwest, tropical water is more forgiven. I have just recently bought one strobe light which I haven't used yet.

I have noticed that I have been getting somewhat satisfactory wide angle shots when I am in shallow water and I don't use the flash at all but just the ambient light. This little camera can take nice video clips when the conditions are right too.

I would suggest to experiment with both the underwater and custom white balance.

You can see a variety of shots and image quality here taken with an A570 and S90:

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/force-fin/280732-where-did-i-go-my-force-fins-21.html#post5400604

and short videos here:

Elisabetta Bastai on Vimeo

Have fun in the Red Sea, I would like to dive there myself one of these days.

 

[Soakedlontra]

AH! I have forgotten to mention that the brightness of the LCD monitor in the A570 is not that great and you cannot adjust it like in the S90. Sometimes it is so bad that I don't have a clue at what I am shooting at! On land I can look through the tiny viewfinder but underwater I keep my fingers crossed...

 

[Diane V]

Tell me - do you like the S90? I'm interested in getting one, but I've read several stories of flimsy build quality, poor battery life, and poorly designed buttons that it's too easy to press inadvertently.

I too have the S90 and agree with Soakedlontra the battery life is poor. On a recent trip to Fiji I was getting 300 shots give or take a few before I had to change the battery. I used the flash at least half the time and shoot in the raw/jpeg combo. It is a hasstle when doing 4 dives a day. At the least you would need at least 1 extra battery pack. I like the compact camera and the quality of the pictures.

 

[Nemrod]

On the S90, you cannot expect more than two full dives with lot's of photos with the Canon battery. On a recent trip to GC I shot two dives in the morning and then shot the camera until it died on my third dive, an afternoon beach dive. I usually got about 70% to 90% through the afternoon dive before the camera died. This is more than I got from my A570 shooting with Eneloop cells. Shooting mostly strobe with about 10% natural light. Usually running my S90 camera strobe on Auto and set to low power and letting the Inon D2000's EA mode do the work. If I were to shoot in Inon sTTL mode, the S90 strobe in Auto, so the Inon could bootstrap, then camera battery life is reduced by a noticeable amount, I would have still gotten two dives but not an afternoon beach dive.

I shot a Canon 570, I had two, one Ike, one Canon housing, up until this year. The A570 is a great little camera and still unsurpassed for it price to performance/quality ratio especially when I had the RAW hack on it. The A570 and S90 shoot very similar with very similar menu/function controls but the S90 with FIX allows direct entry of shutter and f stop and overall better user ergos and human interface (FIX).

The biggest differences I see is that RAW is much easier to use, the S90 is a faster and more responsive camera and the IQ is noticeably better. How is the IQ better, less noise and much greater dynamic range. The S90 shoots at ISO400 cleaner than the A570 at ISO100 and I would say the dynamic range is at least a half stop greater, images that were routinely blown out with my A570 are excellent with my S90, especially sun balls.

Build quality, the A570 is a 7.0 (kinda plastiky), the S90 is a 8.8 and the G11 is a 9.0 (and my old Nikon Titanium FMII would be a 20.0 on a 10 Scale in comparison but it was a real camera made out of real metal and glass and titanium and stainless steel and brass) and not cheap plastic and more plastic.

Is a S90 a much better camera than the A570 yes and if installed in the FIX90 housing is it worth the difference in price, double, hell yes! I have shot them enough to know and with that said, the A570 is a very nice rig to have fun with. If is planning to be a pro, neither are what you want but the S90 is, , 90% closer than the A570 to dSLR.

The S90 is much faster shutter also, I would say in average shooting, twice as fast. If I turn off the Auto focus (not really needed with fisheye lenses) then it seems as fast as the Oly ELP-1 and somewhat slower than the ELP-1 with Auto focus on.

One other thing, already touched upon, since the S90 has a f2.0 lens vs the A570 at f2.6, it is nearly a full stop faster, I can get the same shot at ISO 100 and f2.0 at shutter 1/250 that would have taken f2.6, 1/250 and ISO200 in the A570 and with a cleaner image, start jacking the ISO up to 400 and the S90 just kills the A570 dead and with the nearly full stop faster lens I can get the same image exposure at ISO100 that would take ISO200 with the A570 and much less noise.

Is the A570 worth repairing, if you are already invested in a good housing etc, yes, if not, no.

N

 

[Soakedlontra]

Nemrod, thank you for all the info!

I did not repair my first old A570. I bought another one on Ebay for $80. Unfortunately and sadly during a dive a couple of weeks ago I flooded the Canon Housing that I use with the A570:depressed::depressed:...As you can imagine it was another disastrous event for the camera!

I am wondering if it is even worth keeping it for spare parts...

 

[Soakedlontra]

I am wondering if it is even worth keeping it for spare parts...

No!

Is there anybody here who want a corroded Canon A570 to make a recycled artwork?

 

[slowhands]

No!

Is there anybody here who want a corroded Canon A570 to make a recycled artwork?

You might send it in to Canon. They will declare it BER (Beyond Economical Repair). They will notify you of the Canon Loyalty Program, which you call. They offer you a selection of refurbished Canon products at good discounts, today ranging from an A470 for $48 to a 50D at $720 (plus tax). Check it out.

 

[gwells]

what slowhands said. the loyalty program can get you a great price on a refurbished camera.

i just purchased my G11 for $280 shipped to me by trading in my old (really old) s230 that had been broken for years (still going for more than $400 new street price). if you buy a canon housing (B&H sells them for $170), you're talking about a very good underwater camera for $450 new. the ikelite housing is, i think, $600 or so.

 

[Soakedlontra]

what slowhands said. the loyalty program can get you a great price on a refurbished camera.

i just purchased my G11 for $280 shipped to me by trading in my old (really old) s230 that had been broken for years (still going for more than $400 new street price). if you buy a canon housing (B&H sells them for $170), you're talking about a very good underwater camera for $450 new. the ikelite housing is, i think, $600 or so.

I will send both A570s back to Canon. In the meantime my frustration with the S90, its Ikelite housing and the fantasea strobe light has reached a level that goes beyond words... :cussing:

The strobe light fires in an erratic way. During a dive it fired a couple of times and then stopped firing. Yesterday we tested it in our house and again it did fire a couple of times and then bum! it did not want to fire anymore! The focus light stopped working a month ago.

Now the Ikelite housing for the S90 has developed some problems too (we bought this equipment few months ago). One button has popped out and sometimes the camera does not want to switch on at all while inside the housing! In manual mode I don't have control of shutter speed and the aperture at the same time that it is easy to operate. I have to mess with so many buttons that it becomes almost useless to try to do it when I want to take a picture of a moving subject. Beside I haven't been able to do it at all because the buttons in the housing don't work properly!

I wish I could toss everything in the trash can and start all over from scratch! On land the S90 is ok but underwater it is a nightmare to operate properly, especially with a poorly designed housing like the Ikelite one!

We are going to return the housing, the focus and the strobe light hoping that those folks will either fix the problems or replace everything without charging us, keep the Canon S90 for the time being and hopefully replace the second toasted A570 through the Canon Loyalty Program (we already have the canon housing for that model and surprisingly enough it is working better than the Ikelite! despite all the negative comments that I have heard about it!)

Wish me good luck!

 

[Nemrod]

See, this is the problem with going cheap (relatively) vs going for the best, it is cheaper in the long run, that is why I said to get the Inon strobes (or YS) and FIX housing.

I don't know if you would be satisfied with anything right now given your level of frustration and doubt. Perhaps you should just cool for a while. I sympathize with your plight and hope you get satisfaction one way or another.

My two S90s work beautifully on land and in the water, my FIX housing is wonderfully easy to use and allows complete control of the camera, my Inon strobes work perfectly in all modes. The equipment was expensive and it works. I learned along time ago (and sometimes forget and have to be reminded) that getting the best is cheaper in the long run both in terms of money spent and more importantly enjoyment provided and in your case, much less frustration.

N