Compared to... Canon A620

Below you will find a studio comparison between the Canon PowerShot A700 and the Canon PowerShot A620 at ISO 400

Studio scene comparison (@ ISO 400)

  • Canon PowerShot A700 : Aperture Priority mode, ISO 400, Default Image Parameters,
    Manual white balance, +0.67 EV compensation
     
  • Canon PowerShot A620 : Aperture Priority mode, ISO 400, Default Image Parameters,
    Manual white balance, +1.0 EV compensation
     
  • Lighting: Daylight simulation, >98% CRI
Canon PowerShot A700
Canon PowerShot A620
ISO 400, 1/251 sec, F5.0
ISO 400, 1/403 sec, F4.5
2,841 KB JPEG
3,433 KB JPEG

Once again, there's not a lot in it - the A700 has marginally lower measurable noise than the A620, and this seems to be down to the nature of the sensor itself, not noise reduction. Given that we have generally been very impressed with the ISO 400 performance of the 7.2MP CCD used in the A620 this is a good thing (though the minor reduction in noise is offset by a similar reduction in pixels, so you're not going to see the advantage if you like to produce prints at larger sizes). Again the A620 is producing slightly hotter reds, and again the ISO rating used by Canon appears to be a lot more conservative on the A700, being much closer to our measured ISO 400 than the A620, which is around half a stop more sensitive (something borne out by further testing in the studio). In fact there is less than half a stop's difference between the ISO 800 setting on the A700 and the ISO 400 on the A620. Methinks the marketing department has been talking to Canon's engineers about how PowerShot ISO settings are rated...