Ivan does lesson 5

Look up three reviews of your camera and summarize their conclusions.
Use http://www.dcviews.com/ to find information on your camera.
List the three review sites and also list three strengths and three weaknesses about your camera to the course web log.
Camera: Canon A720 IS

Review 1
http://www.megapixel.net/reviews/canon_a720/a720-gen.php
Despite one or two quirks, the overall design of the camera makes its controls intuitive to use and comfortable to hold.

Review 2
http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/digital/canon_powershot-a720is_review.html
Also comfortable to hold. Very good manual controls and size is good. Larger then most small cameras but more flexible.

Review 3
http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/content/Canon-PowerShot-A720-IS-Digital-Camera-Review-15944.htm
Very technical site. Good for hard info.

Summery

Over all the A720 IS is a good small sensor camera for new photographers as well as a second camera for professional photographers. As long as you are aware of the limitations you can do a lot. The complete set of manual functions is comparable to many professional SLR cameras. It is a good starter camera for beginning photographers, especially for the price. It is compact enough to be portable yet it has a good grip on the right side for one handed photography. There are accessory lenses available as well for wider format or telephoto. I like it, its a very good value for the price.

Strengths
The hand grip is very good for 1 handed shoots.
Extensive array of manual controls.
The image stabilization system is very effective.
Very good color and white balance in most conditions except tungsten.

Weaknesses
Does not do RAW
28mm lens would be nice to have.
Poor color performance under tungsten lighting. Recommended to use tungsten mode in this case.
Picks up a lot of noise at high ISO. Recommended to keep ISO low for best quality shots.