Canon's last-generation
Priced around £225, Canon's PowerShot SX100 IS slips into the market a tad later than Sony's
Design
We have to admit, one of the SX100's biggest lures is its relatively compact size. Though still relatively large compared with the smaller megazooms like the H3 and the TZ3 -- it weighs 266g and will fit into a jacket pocket, at best -- it's still considerably smaller than the S5 and S3.
Part of the size savings likely stems from the shorter, though still optically stabilised, 10x, f/2.8-4.3, 36mm-360mm zoom lens (compared with 12x for its bigger brothers). However, it uses the same 8-megapixel sensor and 64mm (2.5-inch) LCD as the S5 IS.
The camera remains large enough to hold comfortably, though the grip itself could be a smidgen bigger and a lot less slippery. Encased in plastic, the SX100 nevertheless feels quite solid and sturdy. It also has a far more efficient layout than its siblings, with little sacrifice of shooting controls. And a big 'yay!' for the electronic lens cover -- there's no reason we should still have to suffer with those dangling plastic annoyances that pop off when you don't want them to and don't pop off when you do.
A mode dial and zoom switch sit on top of the camera, with PictBridge, face detection and display and menu buttons beneath the LCD. To the right of the display, a navigational scroll wheel has top, bottom, left and right pressure points for ISO, focus -- manual and macro, flash and drive mode.
Dedicated exposure compensation and review buttons plus a Func button to pull up shooting settings, round out the controls. We're usually big fans of scroll wheels, but we find the SX100's maddening -- a mistaken twitch of the finger and we frequently end up clicking on one of the four options instead of scrolling through shutter speeds.
Features
To give Canon credit, the SX100 retains many of the controls found in the S3 and S5. Manual controls tend to fall by the wayside in this camera class. There's still a full complement of manual and semimanual exposure modes, flash and exposure compensation and three-metering modes.
There's also the de rigueur handful of scene modes, plus a decent face detection mode that lets you scroll through found faces to select one. It still takes longer to use than simply picking a face and focusing on it.
You do forgo an electronic viewfinder, support for add-on lenses and a hot shoe with the SX100, though we doubt many potential users would really miss any of them. More irritating is the downfeatured movie capture mode. It does VGA, 30 frames per second movies, but optical zoom doesn't work while shooting them, and the nice separated stereo mics of the S3 and S5 have been replaced with mono sound.
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User reviews4
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The Digiman 21 October 2008
Good: Overall picture quality is very good indeed
Bad: Flash recycling time overly long
Comment: Picture quality for me must be the over-riding factor when buying a camera. Handling issues can be irritating, but are usually adaptable.
This Canon's pictures are, in the main, spot on. Excellent sharpness, lovely colour rendition and decent exposures. Other aspects, such as noise and noise suppression appear to have been compromised somewhere near the centre of each - that is to say that at 400 ISO for example, images are noisy, but they do contain much more detail than the Panasonic TZ3/5, one of the main rivals.
In quite low light, shadowy interiors at a recent Dr. Who exhibition, I shot dozens of pictures, all at either 200 or 400 ISO, with handheld shutter speeds as low as 1/8th of a second, and my success rate was very high at some 85% - not a mean feat. Proof indeed that the optical stabiliser works a real treat. The images were sharp and surprisingly detailed, whilst the colour rendition was quite accurate and richly saturated.
My chief gripes are the lower than average LCD resolution, poor flash recycling times and lack of a 28mm wide angle. But you can't have everything, I suppose.
The only other trait is the textured skies - whether they be bright blue or dark grey - even at base ISO. Pity that, but it's not unique to Canon, and isn't that noticable.
Otherwise, a splendid camera at a reasonable price - now that it's discontinued in favour of the SX110 IS. Grab yourself a little gem.
Quan Pham 31 August 2008
Good: Compact, good image quality, price
Bad: Poor at 10x zoom mode, LCD has nothing but 3 inches size
Comment: If you wanna take a shot outdoor, you definitely get a very suitable camera with good image quality and considerably low price. But you should be desperate with image quality when you take a shot indoor or in poor light condition, it really makes me down! They said that it has image stabilizer, but in 10x zoom mode, you can sense that such a thing doesn't exist!!! Image quality in 10x zoom dramatically decreases, unbelievable bad!!! It's just like you have to take a shot sitting on a wash machine and under heavy mist!!!
NP 21 November 2007
Good: Excellent digital zoom and micro focus; great color outdoors
Bad: Outrageously long flash recharge time
Comment: This is a great camera for natural good light photography. The problems start in poor light or indoors. Despite all the manual settings and the ability to force a low ASA, pictures without the flash in poor light or indoors are very grainy. It takes the camera about 1.5 seconds to take focus and take a picture with the flash on and about 10-12 to recharge afterwards. This means it is pretty useless for anything other than posed shots. It just takes too long to recharge for anything else.
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