When it comes to its PowerShot SX series, Canon's attitude seems to be: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The PowerShot SX120 IS is the latest version of the company's 10x pocket superzoom and is nearly identical to its predecessors, the PowerShot SX110 IS and PowerShot SX100 IS.
The 10-megapixel SX120 has had a resolution bump, and uses Canon's Digic 4 image processor, which, along with enhanced battery life, adds advanced face- and motion-detection features and improved red-eye correction. It's not much of a step forward, adding only a small amount of new technology to 2008's SX110 for about the same price, £190. You get the same excellent photo quality, which is good, but ever-so-slightly slower performance.
Bulky fellow
Although it's bulkier than similarly featured models from Panasonic and Kodak, the SX120 will fit comfortably into a jacket pocket or uncomfortably into a jeans pocket. At 295g, it's not lightweight either. The optically stabilised 10x zoom lens and two AA-size batteries are responsible for most of its weight. The SX120 is large enough that it should be easy to hold securely, and, despite the body being slippery, the right-hand grip seems improved from that of its predecessors.
Encased in plastic, the SX120 nevertheless feels quite solid and sturdy. A door on the bottom covers an SDHC card slot and battery compartment. Unlike many AA-powered superzooms, the SX120 is powered by two rather than four batteries. Battery life feels relatively short. You'll want to pick up some rechargeable NiMH batteries, which will triple the shot count compared to alkalines.
The controls on the back are pretty much the same as those on the SX110. Face-detection, display, menu and exposure-compensation buttons sit above and below the navigational scroll wheel to the right of the 76mm (3-inch) LCD. The wheel surrounds a 'func/set' button and has top, bottom, left and right pressure points for ISO sensitivity, focus (manual, normal and macro), flash and timer. The wheel is a touch too responsive, but it's only really a problem in 'special scene' mode, as it's always activated for either changing scene types or exposure compensation. The PictBridge button that was relegated to the far left corner above the screen is gone, while a playback button sits between the right side of the LCD and the slight indent of a thumb rest.
Canon has put the more common scene-shooting modes (portrait, landscape, night snapshot, indoor, and kids and pets) on the actual mode dial and kept more specialised scene types (sunset, snow, fireworks, foliage, aquarium, beach and ISO 3,200) under an 'SCN' spot on the dial.
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David Battaliou 1 June 2011
Comment: You people don't know what you're doing. The camera you feature here is the SX210is, not the SX120is.
eldondetekno 2 November 2009
Good: Excellent user interface and manual controls
Bad: Lens is not wide enough
Comment: Recently I purchased a Canon EOS 450D because I wanted to get more serious about photography, but found the jump from my previous Canon IXUS 860 point and shoot too big a leap. Not withstanding I wanted to preserver and find a camera that could teach how to use manual functions and ease my way in to more complex photography.
The contender to this camera that I was looking at was the Panasonic Lumix L3, as I liked the really wide angle lens and overall design of this camera and the price having dropped considerably. However when having the facility to physically compare both cameras, the way the user menu worked on the Canon Powershot 120IS really made it simple and very intuitive to toggle and tweak all the manual settings and actually see on the screen the effect that changing the ISO, aperture or shutter speed has.
Some draw backs I found that in bright sunlight using the LCD screen it was difficult to correctly asses the right exposure levels, oh I do miss the lack of an optical view finder, which is so prevalent on camera's today.
The pictures are generally very good, and I am surprised at being able to compose really good macro pictures, low light levels with high ISO settings and the pictures when using the zoom are pretty detailed too. I have found that on occasion the pictures are not as sharp as they should be, but that is not always the case and I am stilling a bit of a novice at using manual settings, auto and easy modes generally produce very good results.
On other reviews people have complained about the battery consumption, however having come back from a weekend away I managed to use a quality set of rechargeable batteries for a two day period.
So in summary, great fun and practical to use, with an excellent user interface. This is the reason I bought the camera, had it a wider angle lens, say anything between 24mm to 28mm and some type of either electronic or optical view finder this would have been perfect. As such I will continue to train on this and save for a more complex camera in the future, maybe like the Canon G11 or the new Panasonic Lumix four thirds or Olympus PEN, since I have a feeling that I will out grow this camera soon!
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