Generally, photo quality tends to be the weakest aspect of superzooms, but the SX1's pictures are among the best in its class. While its colours aren't quite as good as the SX10's -- oranges, yellows, reds and purples are slightly off, although you probably couldn't tell without a side-by-side comparison -- it has a better tonal range with less contouring in shadow areas.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
The SX1 also has a better noise profile, with lower noise at all ISO levels, and without the blue channel artefacts we noticed in the SX10's photos. But, as with most models at this level, detail becomes visibly degraded at ISO 400 and beyond. The SX1 is pretty sharp, but it's not as sharp as the SX10. We attribute this to some visible haloing in the blue channel that we saw in our test charts.
The camera retains the separated stereo mics of its ancestors and can zoom -- pretty quietly -- during recording. The video quality is quite good. It's relatively sharp and saturated, with fast refocusing and exposure adjustment, especially when played back on a large TV.
Conclusion
Priced like a cheap dSLR and roughly the same size, the Canon PowerShot SX1 IS delivers similar performance, plus a 20x zoom lens and HD video, which dSLRs can't provide. While it's relatively expensive for its class and has some interface quirks, it's one of the best superzooms we've seen so far.
Additional editing by Charles Kloet
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seamus 25 May 2009
Good: Video, particularly sound quality
Bad: Quality of photos
Comment: Waited some time for a hybrid camera of this spec. Canon got everything right except the quality of the photos. I only had use of camera for 5 days, returned for faulty lens. The video is exceptional and on a par with most non HD camcorders. The stereo mics do work well particularly in reducing wind noise when using in open landscape. The focusing in video mode is also very good with no discernable noise when zooming which is also very smooth and holds focus better it seems than cameras such as TZ7. The killers for photographic quality are noise and CA. The quality is slightly better in RAW mode. Colour rendition is very good reporting an accurate spectrum in dull conditions but saturation levels in good lighting conditions can be poor, showing processing when viewed at even 50%, blacks are also poor when using flash. Handles red eye particularly well with no problems in any photos taken. Quality of photographs are clearly better in bright sunny conditions with less obvious noise in shadow areas. A Canon fan for 30 years but comparing the results from the SX1 against my PRO 1 (8 Mega Pixel launched in 2005) the PRO 1 quality is superior in every respect. Also compared SX1 against Canon 720 IS and preferred the results from the 720. SX1 promises much but I feel fails to deliver on the quality of photos it produces. Too many will require excessive editing if you want prints larger than 10X8.
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