The perfect model for those who want a versatile and easy-to-use digicam without spending a fortune.

It would be hard to find a more suitable first digital camera for the novice digital photographer than the PowerShot A520. No matter what the situation, the A520 turns out perfectly exposed and focused results shot after shot. And the fact that as well as idiot-proof ‘point and shoot’ modes and scene modes you get a full array of manual options means it’s a camera that you can grow with as your skills develop.

There’s a lot to like about the Canon PowerShot A520. With automatic and scene modes for the beginner, and manual, shutter-priority and aperture-priority modes for the advanced user, it has appealing features for every member of your family. It is small and light enough that you’ll want to have it with you all the time, never missing a photo op. The A520’s image quality is very good, with sufficient resolution for 8×10-inch prints even after a moderate amount of cropping.

With many manual controls, the full-featured but compact PowerShot A520 is a good deal for beginning photographers.

In conclusion, I can highly recommend the A510 and A520 to most people. However, those who take a lot of photos in dim lighting (and by that I don’t mean interior lighting, I mean darker than that) or fans of redeye-free photos may be frustrated with either of the two cameras. To be fair, most of the competition has the same problems, but since the old models didn’t have these problems, I’m going to knock Canon for it.

Canon puts aperture priority, shutter priority, and even full manual control at your fingertips, which is a relative rarity in this price range. Want to focus manually? You can do that too. All of this customization makes the A520 the kind of four-megapixel camera users can grow into.

The Canon PowerShot A520 might look a style icon compared with some of its brethren, but it is probably the ideal model for anyone buying a digital camera for the first time. It also has a good range of auto and manual controls, so that as you become more confident, you can grow with your photography without quickly outgrowing the camera.

The camera is compact and is designed well – the camera feels comfortable in my hands. The camera is fairly compact and has a good zoom range. The camera is easy to use, the menu system is easy to use and there is a fairly good layout of buttons and controls. The camera speed is okay, but slightly on the sluggish side.

This compact 4-megapixel replacement for the PowerShot A85 isn’t as light and pocketable as its Elph counterpart, the PowerShot SD300, but it offers the full range of manual controls that photo enthusiasts require, outdoes its stablemate in number of scene modes and zoom range, and costs less to boot.