The Canon Powershot A710 IS is a 7.1-mega pixel camera with 6x optical zoom and a 2.5-inch LCD screen. DC Resource has reviewed the A710 and they write: “The PowerShot A710 is basically a sleeker version of the A700 that came before it. The body is made of a mix of metal and plastic, and it feels pretty solid.

There’s a decent-sized grip for your right hand, and the important controls are within easy reach of your fingers.” “The A710 did a fine job with our standard macro test. The colors are spot-on, and our 3″ tall subject has a “smooth” look to it, with no visible noise. I used the custom white balance feature here, which handled my studio lights without any trouble.

In macro mode you can be just 1 centimeter away from your subject! The only catch here is that you can only do close-up shooting between 1X and 2X zoom. ”
“Things look quite clean through ISO 200. Grain starts to become more apparent at ISO 400, but I was still able to make a very nice-looking 8 x 10 inch print of that photo. The ISO 400 shot seems a little cleaner than what the A700 produced, despite having a higher resolution CCD. At ISO 800 things are quite grainy and some details are lost, so it’s only for small prints. There appears to be a slight drop in color saturation at that setting, too.

Overall, the PowerShot A710’s photo quality is very good. Colors were nice and saturated, and exposure was accurate in my real world photos. Images have a smooth look to them, without being too soft. Noise levels are low through ISO 200 and reasonable at ISO 400. Purple fringing was not a major problem. “