Earlier this year I reviewed the Canon Powershot A510, and the sensor and design this camera is very close, almost identical to the Powershot A75 even if they are in two different series.
In the early 2000s this was actually fairly common to do especially for Canon. Prior to the Powershot ELPH series which standardized the smaller more compact form factor Canon tried a lot of different designs in their pocket cameras, with some being discontinued to show up in later model series. If a model design did well, they may re-use the design a year or two later under a different series.
Released in 2004 this camera is almost identical to the Canon Powershot A510 (released one year later in 2005) in physical button layout, size and form factor.
The Canon Powershot A75 has a 1/2.7" 3.2mp CCD sensor. The Canon Powershot A510 that proceeded it has a newer and very slightly larger (smaller fractions under 1" sensor size is bigger) 1/2.5" 3.2mp CCD sensor.
The similarities between the sensor are not the only thing these two cameras share. They both have a indented finger grip, full manual controls with a 4 way dpad, optical viewfinder, 3x optical zoom and could both take filters/lens adapter by the optional attachment that could hook up to the camera's accessory ring.
Both are powered by 4 AA batteries making them popular for digicam enthusiasts. The one noteable difference is the A75 uses Compact Flash and the A510 takes SD (not SDHC) memory. The A75 is a little more useful as it can read CF cards up to 1gb whereas the A510 will not read any SD cards over 512mb; which makes locating memory cards that work with the A510 a lot harder to work with. While you should be able to use the more standard 2gb SD card, mine would not read it and seemed to struggle with anything over a 512mb card.
There is one unfortunate issue with both of these cameras, and this is Quality Control issues. These were entry-mid range consumer pocket cameras and they were not built to last. Both are plagued by a variety of wear and tear issues (which happens for cameras that are almost two decades old. However after talking to other Digicam collectors it seems very common that both of these camera series have a lot of defects) ranging from dead sensors, to dead zoom or AF motors on the lenses and worn out control buttons.
My A510 and A75 both have flaws which prevent me from giving them a full honest review. As I mentioned when reviewing the A510; one of the D-Pad buttons was worn out which prevented me from changing the time/date or adjusting other functions such as exposure compensation.
During this review, the A75's optical zoom motor got stuck to the full wide focal length. The lens would still extend and retract as it was turned on or off; but after two photos the zoom lever on the front would no longer engage the motor to extend the lens to zoom in. Autofocus did work, but I was locked to one focal length.
The shooting experience of both cameras was very close to each other. Startup and shutdown time was good, but there was a slight input control lag as well as a shutter lag when a photo was taken.
The mechanical issues of both cameras along with the fairly meh and slightly laggy shooting experience makes me very unlikely to shoot with either of these again.
If one was searching to get the mid 2000's Digicam look and wanted the ability to do manual exposure then both of these cameras would be an option provided you were able to find one in better condition then the ones I own. In this case, the sensor in the A510 seemed slightly more vibrant and sharper so I would recommend that over the A75 but the differences are pretty slight.
So with the defect limitations of the particular camera I have, here's a few examples of I was able to get for one of my last reviews for this 52 camera project.
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