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  • Product Tour

  • Hardware

  • Design & Layout

  • Modes

  • Controls

  • Conclusion

  • Product Tour
  • Hardware
  • Design & Layout
  • Modes
  • Controls
  • Conclusion

Product Tour

The Canon A2100 IS has a few little design flourishes that set it apart from the crowd without looking gaudy in any way. The 12.1-megapixel A2100 measures 4.01 x 2.50 x 1.26 inches (101.9 x 63.5 x 31.9mm) and weighs  6.53 oz, (185g) , giving it a nice balance between easy portability andsubstantial surfaces to allow a firm grip.

The A2100 has a sophisticated look in black with silver accents.

Front

The silver-ringed lens is the main feature on the A2100's face. Above it are the autofocus assist to the left and the flash to the right. If you're familiar with this series, you might notice that this is the first model that doesn't have a grip on its left side.

The thin metal divider to the left of the lens appears to be all that remains of the A2100's now-devolved grip.

Back

As is customary for point-and-shoot cameras, the back of the A2100 is mainly LCD. To the right of the screen is a vertical strip of controls. The top-most button will bring you to playback mode. The buttons orbiting the four-way control are facial recognition mode in the top left, a print/custom button in the top right, display on the bottom left, and menu on the bottom right. The five buttons that comprise the pad itself are: exposure compensation (top), macro mode (left), flash (right), self-timer (down), and function settings (center).

The speaker is placed in an unusually prominent position near the top.

Sides

The left side has only a few boring screws to hold your attention. The right side has the same number of boring screws, but it also throws in a wrist strap loop and covered USB port.

USB and wrist strap enthusiasts will find a lot more to like about the right side than the left.

Top

The top of the A2100 has no less than three lines of branding and is also NOT FOR SALE (this was a pre-production unit). The actual buttons occur to the right of the prolix branding, beginning with the on/off button. Next is the control dial, which lets you choose one of the following settings: program, automatic, easy mode, portrait, landscape, night shot, kids & pets, indoor, additional scene modes and movie. The last button is the shutter button, which sits atop its zoom ring throne.

The A2100 has the traditional zoom ring design, to allow easy access from the shutter button.

Bottom

The bottom of the A2100 has the same two features as just about every other point-and-shoot: a tripod socket and a hatch-covered cavity that holds its AA  atteries and memory card.

The tripod socket is centered under the camera body rather than the lens.

Hardware

Viewfinder

Like most compact cameras today, the A2100 doesn't devote scarce real estate to an optical viewfinder, a fact you might regret while squinting at the LCD screen in a glare-prone bright sunny day.

LCD

The LCD is a typical 3-inch screen with 230,000-dot resolution. We held the camera at a variety of viewing angles and didn't see any problems reading the display. Five different screen brightness settings are available through the menuy system.

The 3-inch LCD will serve both as a monitor and viewfinder.

Flash

The flash is located on the front of the A2100, in its top right corner. Since the flash is located just above the lens, your pictures will be more prone to red eye than they would be if the flash were further removed..

A small flash located near the lens could lead to red-eye problems.

Lens

The A2100 provides a 6x zoom lens with a focal length range from 6.4 to 38.4mm (35mm equivalent of 36-216mm), and an aperture range of f/3.2 to f/5.9. Normal focusing range runs from 50cm to infinity, while the macro mode covers the 1-50cm range. 

The A2100 has an above-average zoom range for a point-and-shoot.

Jacks, Ports & Plugs

The A2100's ports are located on its right side. The top port is a DC input, for use with an optional AC adapter, while the bottom one is a mini USB port.

_The I/O ports are well protected from the elements. _

Battery

_The I/O ports are well protected from the elements. _

The A2100 takes two AAs, which it keeps under a secret panel on its bottom. You can also use rechargeable batteries to keep costs down or invest in the optional AC adapter kit. According to Canon, a set of AA batteries should be good for approximately 160 shots, which isn't a whole lot of photos.

Memory

The A2100 accepts SD/SDHC memory cards along with the less popular MultiMediaCard, MMC Plus Card, and HC MMC Plus Card formats. As seen in the picture above, the memory card slot is located next to the batteries.

Design & Layout

Design & Appearance

The A2100 has the look of a basic point-and-shoot with a few added silver highlights we find attractive. The design provides a bit of a grip on its right side, giving the camera a distinctive wedge shape. The controls on the back have a nice design and clean layout. All in all, the A2100 looks more professional than the average compact camera.

Size & Handling

The A2100 is a typical size for a point-and-shoot, and features a better-than-average layout.

The A2100 is smaller than its predecessor, due to the lack of a hand grip. The A2100 is actually the first camera in Canon's A series to do away with the hand grip, making it slightly less bulky. This being said, the camera is still a bit big for pocketing discretely. We liked the control layout on the back and the shutter button's positioning. 

Menu

The A2100 has a simple menu.

The A2100's menu structure is basic. There are two tabs at the top, one for shooting options and the second for general settings. You can cycle through options with the left and right buttons on the four-way controller, or click to expand submenus. Again, there's nothing shocking or innovative here.

The function menu provides easy access to some of the camera's few manual controls.

There is also a quick menu, accessed by pressing the Func Set. The quick menu changes dynamically depending on what mode you're in, graying out the unavailable choices. The full menu contains a scene mode, ISO settings, white balance, color effect, metering, burst mode, and picture size.

Ease of Use

The A2100 appears to be a mid-level point-and-shoot in terms of usability. It doesn't have the extensive help menus we see in some entry level units, but it has an intuitive layout, a good selection of automatic modes, and a relatively transparent menu system. We wouldn't necessarily recommend this camera for a beginner, but the device isn't so obtuse that beginners will feel lost.

Modes

Auto Mode


The A2100 has a full automatic exposure mode. Some shooting features also have automatic modes, such as ISO, white balance, red eye correction, and flash.

 

Movie Mode


The A2100 captures movies in AVI format with monaural sound. It can shoot at  640x480 or 320x240 resolution at 30 fps. Videos are capped at 4GB or 60 minutes, whichever comes first.

 

Drive/Burst Mode


The only burst mode option is continuous shot. In this mode you can get about 1.1 frames per second with the highest picture size and quality.

 

Playback Mode

The A2100 has a standard array of playback features.

The A2100 has a few post-production options. You can, of course, set up a slideshow. You can also adjust contrast, fix red eye, resize your picture, or rotate it. The camera also supports direct connection to PictBridge-compatible printers. All you have to do is plug the camera in and press the Print button. Then you can choose your paper quality, number of copies, etc., and start printing.

 

**

Custom Image Presets**


The A2100 separates scenes into two groups. The first batch are accessed through the control dial: landscape, indoor, kids & pets, and night snapshot scene modes are all accessible through the dial. There are also some 'special scene' modes, which can be set via the function menu. Here you can choose from sunset, night scene, fireworks, long shutter, beach, aquarium, foliage, and ISO 3200.

Controls

Manual Controls


The A2100 lets you manually choose the ISO setting, set up a custom white balance, and select your metering mode. This isn't a very wide array of manual controls. More advanced cameras would give you granular control of shutter speed and aperture settings, but those features are rare on point-and-shoots.

 

Focus


The A2100 offers only autofucus. The range for autofocus is from 6.4 to 38.4mm (36-216mm on 35mm film) or 1 to 50cm in macro mode.

 

ISO


You can manually set the ISO to 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600. You can also activate a high sensitivity mode, which allows you to access ISO 3200.

 

White Balance


In addition to automatic and custom white balance, you can choose a white balance from one of the five presets. The A2100 lets you pick daylight, cloudy, tungsten, fluorescent, and fluorescent (H).

 

Metering


There are four presets for metering: evaluative, center-weighted, average, and spot. There's also an automatic mode.

 

Shutter Speed


The A2100's shutter speed ranges from 15 to 1/1600 seconds. To get the shutter to slow down to allow a 15-seconds exposure, you have to enable Long Shutter mode.

 

Aperture


The maximum aperture settings are f/3.2 (wide) and f/5.9 (telephoto).

 

Image Stabilization


The A2100 incorporates optical image stabilization to combat shaky hands while shooting.

 

Picture Quality & Size Options


The A2100 has a six different picture sizes. The highiest-resolution, 12MP option is 4000x3000. There's also a wide setting at 4000x2248. The smallest available picture size is 0.3MP and 640x480.

 

Picture Effects


A handful of picture effects are provided: vivid, neutral, sepia, black & white, custom. You can also customize photo settings by adjusting contrast, sharpness and saturation levels individually.

 

Conclusion

Meet the tester

Mark Brezinski

Mark Brezinski

Senior Writer

@markbrezinski

Mark Brezinski works on the Home Team, reviewing refrigerators, minifridges, dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, air conditioners, air purifiers, and fans.

See all of Mark Brezinski's reviews

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