I bought the A610 as an update to my beloved A80 mainly because I wanted a larger lcd. It arrived October 19, 2005. I have to state up front that these are not straight out of the camera images. They have been edited to bring out their best. Lots of color options in this camera...more than I need! I believe the camera has greater noise reduction at higher ISOs than what (if any) was in the A80. ISO200 images, if properly exposed, don't really need any further noise reduction.

Be aware that for the best results you are going to have to watch out for overexposure in bright daylight. It's a good idea to take a test shot and then look at the histogram in review mode to make sure there isn't a big spike at the right of the graph indicating that you're going to have a burnt out white area. (Here's a good explanation of the histogram: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml ) I routinely use a minus 2/3 exposure compensation. High ISO pictures can be a bit flat and hazy looking because of the noise reduction. You'll have to increase the contrast and saturation and sharpen them. The construction of the camera leaves something to be desired. The tiny door for the Secure Digital card seems vulnerable. There are two bright spots on the lcd which started out at the top of the screen, but are now down on the bottom. I understand others have seen this. I'm just going to ignore them.

Most appreciated improvements over A80: Faster focusing, gain up of the lcd in dark situations, easier exposure bias setting,excellent auto white balance - amazing for tungsten, better video but annoying hiss accompanies it. If you like the Sound Memo feature, you can use that to record "atmosphere" to add to your pictures when you upload them to Pbase. I use the free program Audacity to remove the hiss in the wav Sound Memo files. Uncompressed sample video: http://isabelcutler.com/LaundryLightsLouie.avi (16.7mb - taken under ceiling fluorescents)