owned this camera for 5yearss bought in 2003.it still working..!I play with it when i want to Reminisce/or go back in Time.LOL..it has 16mb CF card lol. and ssome Ancient Photos..

I bought my A300 in 2003 and still works perfectly. However, it is today very slow (even in 2003 was not the fastest machine), but gives the most beautiful colours I saw from digicams. This was the reason I kept it for so long. No its time to change, but still have not decided for what.

i had it 4 years ago then it was a good one now its is slow now i own a nikon d80x

I received this camera from my dad for X-mas. Since then I could have bought stock in the battery company and became a millionaire. This camera eats batteries. I take a few pics and then change the cell battery and the AA ones as well, not being too sure on which battery needs to be changed when it states 'battery pack needs changing'I am currently planning a trip out west and I want to be able to take good quality pics and I am in the market to buying a D-SLR it is more money, but I can't see buying a small camera for the same cost and not getting what I paid for in the first place. In regards to the screen issues mentioned earlier in reviews, there is a recall for that go to canon.com- products A300 under archived products on bottom of page.

Yes, my camera went on the frits too. Owned for 2 years, used it only sporatically, and now goes black on the screen and pics are blacked out as well.

Have had my PowerShot A300 two years and now the memory card pins are damaged. It's 50/50 whether the camera will accept the card. Plus, it's too long of a wait between shots and using the zoom button causes the picture to be blurry, even from short distances. I'm ready to give this one to the kids and buy another brand!

***********OH MY GOSH PEOPLE************DIGITAL CAMERA'S "NEED" THE RECHARGABLE OR REG. Nimh Batteries. Alkaline Batteries Are not ment for these new age camera's. Your in a new Century here. Just Buy the Rechargable Nimh's and GET WITH IT. I love my A-300 and used it for 3 yrs. Awesome pictures, and Prints it gave to me. And it was Point and Shoot. There is a delay w/the flash, and focusing, So only get one if you dont have small children and need the quick to focus feature. Other then that I have had

I have this camera. quality is good, but the problem is it took long to to focus after a shot. it need's a 20 seconds to go back to flash

Have had this camera for 3 1/2 years...Have lost MANY opportunities to take pictures because you have to hold the button down so long people get tired of waiting! Battery Pack always says it needs to be replaced even though I just put them in..Very frustrating purchase! Not a long term camera!

Ive had mine for all most 12 monts and its only taken 6 12 pics and wont take any more if u can help me with this i would be so greatful

I had this camera for only one year and the camera stopped working. I would have new batteries installed and it wouldn't read the battery pack properly, saying that the battery pack needs to be changed. I bought a new digital camera and it's NOT a Canon!

I've owned this camera for quite a while and it has only been a complete nuisance to me. The camera does take nice quality pictures, however. The lack of optical zoom means "do not buy this". Today you can find many better cameras at decent prices with optical zoom, so only buy this camera used from a friend, if at all. Now, on to the "speed" issue. This camera is slow, as has been mentioned. Very slow.. the comment on it taking a picture "maybe" is very accurate. When using the flash (which most normal people use!), you can expect to wait quite a while for the camera to take the picture. I guarantee it will annoy you to the point of wanting to pitch the camera on the ground and never look back. Stay away from the A300 and, instead, look at Canon's S series of cameras. They all use the same digital image processor, but the S series actually works (fast!) and includes optical zoom.

This camera does take good pictures but it does seem to drain alkaline batteries too fast. I think the problem is that it detects the batteries as low even though there is still most of the energy (charge) left in the alkaline battery. After taking them out of this camera I have used the alkaline batteries in other devices like flash lights and they run for hours. The voltage drops quickly (discharge curve) on an alkaline battery. When I started using NiMH rechargable batteries the camera worked much better. The NiMH keeps up its voltage until almost discharged. It is not just the Cannon camera that has trouble with alkaline batteries, I have an older Casio digital camera that does the same thing. It too likes NiMH cells better.

I've had a Powershot A300 since a little more than 2 years ago, and although I have faced some problems, I also think the overall quality for the price of the camera (and compared to another 3 megapixels cameras) is fairly good.

I would like to address the battery problem: If you're using alkaline batteries, they're going to last only a few minutes. With a completeley new set of alkaline batteries, I coudln't use it for more than 20 minutes and the batteries went dead, and when taking movies, it only gets worse. Well, that's because none should be using a digital camera with alkaline batteries unless in an emergency. Get yourself a decent pack of rechargeable NIMH batteries. They're cheap, they charge fairly quick and they last about 4 times or more the time of a alkaline batteries.

The problems I've found with the camera, are, yes, the shutter lag, and the issue that many pictures seem perfectly focused in the little screen, but once in the computer screen they look blurry. This is a camera that doesn't handle low light well, unless you put it in a tripod or fixed surface. The colors, and image are good, even at night, but if you move just one little bit when taking the picture, it will come out kind of blurry. I use it in iso 400 must of the time, unless in broad daylight.

I loved this camera at first because it took great pictures (at least without flash or you have to hold it forever). it comes at such a great price too for the quality of pictures you get.

after the first 6 months, the batteries started to drop like Paris Hilton's pants. I went to China, took like 10 pictures, and the damn camera ran out of batteries. I swear I purchased like 20 throughout my tour to sustain this battery hungry beast.

I thought it was because of the cheap Chinese quality, so I went back and brought rechargable. The rechargable ones died even faster! So then I thought rechargables weren't that well, and ordered 20 AA batteries from batteries.com (Panasonic too!) Mother of a *#$# camera took 3 pictures before it needed more pictures.

STAY AWAY FROM CANON A300!

I have the powershot A300 and let me tell you something... This camera start malfunctioning after 2 years of usage. My friend had the same camera and it happened the same thing. batteries las 1 second only but the pictures are good.

It is true that it sucks up the battery quite fast, but that's because it's not designed to function on regular AA batteries... I use 4 NiMH Rechargeables, they'r enough for well over a 100 pictures, in a week's vacation i had to recharge them only once. However, it is a little slow while taking pictures with flash.

I have not liked this camera one bit since I received it. You cannot zoom when taking a movie and when taking a photo you have to first press the button down half way and hold then press it the full way down. This means you may miss the PERFECT shot.

it's a battery earting piece of junk stay away FAR AWAY........

I used up 10 packs of batteries packs for the first week and I kept it away from me. The cost of buying batteries will be much more than the value of this camera.

If you're going on a trip, make sure to pack 20 AA batteries, you'll need them. The battery life drives me insane, besides that its a good camera. I'd recommend rechargeable batteries if you must get this camera.

The Canon A300 takes excellent pictures for the price. It has many features found only in more expensive cameras. Pictures taken with the Camera and printed out on a Canon I70 printer are stunning. The camera does need NMHI batteries to keep it functioning properly. Before taking a picture it is necessary to depress the shutter button slightly to allow the camera to find the correct exposure and distance to the subject. I am very happy with my Camera and couldn't have made a better choice.

have had this camera since december of 03. it overall does a pretty good job i'm just disappointed with how long it takes to snap a picture, i've lost so many good moments because it takes so long to resume back to its screen to take another one. the zooming in on the screen looks like the picture is fine but when you go to develop it the clearity is AWFUL!!! you can see all the pixels. night pics aren't good either. overall i'm not very happy and i'm searching for another digital camera

I owned a truck repair business, so the digital camera became a part of every day workshop duty. We would take pictures of repairs at various stages but the battery would only last a minute or two. then trying to retrieve the photos was an act which required great patience.
you had to hold the button down for a long time before it finally took the picture.
We often had to e-mail the pictures to insurance companies etc... the quality of the photo was very good....very clear and e-mailed well. The camera was a necessity of the business and it was a first for me to use the digital camera and I looked forward to it but the problem with battery and timing was a nusian ce. i still have the camera but would think twice about purchasing another canon camera. Sorry.I hope you sort out the problems.

Pictures are good but when you zoom in, the photos do not develop well. when you zoom in the photos print very "badly" you can not see faces on people clear or any thing clear. also the camara sometimes takes a couple of seconds to take the photo, its not fast at all.

okay... I love my camera to a point. Yes, it pretty much works most of the time. The batteries... I have to always switch... if you take dark pictures and use the flash they don't come out right! But, I can't really complain... because up until recently I hadn't use it as often... but now I snap away!

it is a little hard on batteries but not as voracious as some of the reviews state. turning the preview off for most pix really made a difference in the battery life as did shortening the post-view time. the lcd is, apparently, the culprit. rechargeable batteries have always been a requirement in our house so i can't speak to those carrying loads of them.

it does take quite a long time to actually shoot a picture, however, and that can really interfere with a shot that's set up to take advantage of a crowd parting, kids doing something really cute or other semi-spontaneous activities.

my REAL issue is that the camera's pins that fit into the flash cards have bent and our retailer (CompUSA) has denied repair under their extended warranty plan. they say, that's "normal wear and tear". has anyone else experienced pin damage?

we've liked the pictures that we've taken, though we found the owner's manual a little hard to follow. i don't know that i would buy another one of these.

It is a nice camera, easy to operate and portable. By using rechargeable batteries its life time is good. overall nice results.

This camera is absolutely useless i took it on holiday with me with 4 aa batteries. Surprise surprise 2 pictures batteries dead!!!changed the batteries and the same thing happened as i dont use my cameras that much i didnt realise it was a problem and now the warranty is up although i am going to contact canon and suggest all of these cameras are recalled!

I have owned this camera for over a year now. At first it did seem to eat batteries, all the time. I went to 2500 rechargables and DO NOT USE THE FLASH. I also bought a 512mb Compact Flash card to replace the 16mb that comes with it.

I went on vacation driving across the country. We took over 1,500 pictures on that memory stick. Everyone was Very good.

I use the manual mode and really like the setting options. I can set it to 400ASA and shoot dimly lit shots that come out good. I like the natural look of shots with no flash.

TWO 2500 batteries lasted pretty near all day. I have 4 - 2500 batteries. We charged them every night at the hotel, and we were good to go ALL next day.

The DIGITAL ZOOM SUCKS. You can zoom one or two steps, but each step in looses digital clarity.

This camera has a lot of manual advanced settings for a cheap camera. My next one will have an optical zoom.
M.

Although the camera may perform well brand new, daily use and durability is another question. After owning it about a year; batteries, Flash malfunction and now I cannot retrieve pictures from my camera.I have missed many moments and lost many pictures with this camera. Pretty much a $200 disposable camera.To be fair, This camera does take nice pictures (when it does take them). them)

Screen turns on and off into black.
Battery consumes very fast
Takes forever to take a single shot, need to press so hard.

I thought it was me that the camera always eat up the battery. I guess not!! I cannot believe a famous camera brand name as Cannon would allow terrible product like this on the market. I have to change batteries every 2-3 mins when I turn on the camera everytime. IT'S RIDICULOUS! I missed a good part of my friend's wedding because of this stupid camera!

It always worked fine, its a good little camera, I hated the use of all those AA batteries, until I bought rechargeable. Then all of a sudden the LCD panel goes black. I didn't drop it, or do anything wrong. One day it started to act up , and then the next day it was gone!! Either I'm going to buy a really cheap camera next time, or but the extended warranty.

Being a senior I thought maybe this camera would be a little to complicated for me but found it is quite simple to use and the pictures are excellent. I have never had trouble with batteries and the only one thing that I find troublesome is the flash seems to take quite awhile for it to work.
I think for the price and all it is a very good camera.

My A300 eats batteries. Every time I try to use the camera, it needs new batteries. While using the camera on vacation, I had to keep a bag full of AA batteries in my purse so that I could actually take pictures. Rechargeable batteries were no better. The camera also takes a really long time to take the picture. I aim the camera, press the button, press the button again, keep holding down the button and finally the picture will snap, maybe. Don't plan on taking any action shots or pictures of children or animals. I don't know if that has anything to do with the batteries or not. Not having an optical zoom is also a drag. It's just not worth the effort. I now take a disposable camera with me when I actually want to be able to take photos.

It may take excellent pictures like they say. I wouldn't know. Eats my batteries too fast for me to find out. 4-6 pictures and it's screaming "replace battery pack". I went back to my old 35mm from WalMart. Wouldn't buy another one.

I've read all the reviews and I can see that the "testers" haven't used it for so long as I. Canon seems to have problem with the battery, even when I put a new pair of batteries, I get the message :Low battery. Beside that, you will notice after some time that the LCD monitor is blinking, and when is not, it produces lines, the funny thing is that even when I don't take pics using the LCD, those lines will appear to the photo. Funniest of all is that you will see those problems also to other canon cameras not only the A300.

I love my digital camera for the most part. The only think that i don't like is the zoom. When you zoom in the picture is blurry. I don't know how to correct this problem.