Image quality
What the camera sacrifices in speed,
however, it makes up for in photo quality. Perhaps it's just the result
of an extra few months of tweaking since the S5 shipped, but the
SX100's photo quality, especially at higher ISO sensitivity settings,
clearly improves upon its siblings.
At ISO 800, for example, there's far less of a mottled look in the SX100's shots, but with no increased loss of detail. The new lens has better distortion characteristics -- less distortion and more symmetry -- and photos look sharp without looking oversharpened.
While there's a bit of magenta, yellow and purple fringing, it's not nearly as severe in the SX100's photos as those of the S5 (or S3). Plus, the good aspects of those models' images -- predominantly excellent exposure and colour -- highlight the SX100's photos, as well.
Conclusion
Despite its arguably best-in-class photo
quality, the Canon PowerShot SX100's spotty performance, disappointing
movie capture and occasionally frustrating design keep it from earning
a no-brainer recommendation.
Additional editing by Shannon Doubleday
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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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