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Reviews

Canon Powershot SX100 IS

Posted 07/01/2008 at 12:44:15pm | by Rick Oldano

Canon point and shoot
Get a little closer—the 8-megapixel SX100 IS also has 10x optical zoom.

Just when you think digicam manufacturers have equipped their products with every new feature there is, along comes a camera that offers consumers even more—a bigger LCD, built-in image stabilization, or more shooting modes. With the PowerShot SX100 IS, however, Canon took a surprising tack by taking something away—the optical viewfinder. Yet, what this digicam does offer is image stabilization, and it maintains the PowerShot line’s compact point-and-shoot design.

Image stabilization technology has slowly been trickling down through Canon’s arsenal of cameras, starting with the company’s interchangeable DSLR lenses, and then appearing in its high-end consumer cameras, and finally materializing in the reasonably priced SX100 IS. This feature lets you shoot at slow shutter speeds and still capture images that don’t exhibit motion blur, the jittery effect that comes from having the shutter open too long. The SX100 IS’s image stabilization will provide the equivalent of at least two ƒ-stops for your exposure. In other words, if you should expose the image at 1/125 second, the camera set at 1/60 or 1/30 will still give you a good picture.

Your pictures will also show great color fidelity and sharpness. We were very pleased with the image quality of the SX100 IS: Neutral areas in our test images showed no colorcast and skin tones were spot on. While the camera offers an ISO range of 80 to 1600, we don’t recommend a steady shooting diet of ISO 1600, as these images showed a lot of visual noise in our tests. Shooting at 80 through 400, however, should produce excellent pictures in most scenarios.

While we made great use of the 2.5-inch LCD on the back of the camera, the SX100 IS has no optical viewfinder, which means that you drain your battery faster because you have to use the screen to both frame and review each image. While Canon has improved its battery technology and has built in better, lower-power circuitry, which helps boost battery life, we would recommend that you carry spare batteries (it runs on two AAs, with NiMH lasting almost three times as long as alkalines) if you plan on a full day of shooting.

The PowerShot SX100 IS packs 10x optical zoom and impressive image stabilization at a competitive price point, and, at just over 4 inches wide, still fits in your pocket.

COMPANY: Canon
CONTACT: www.canon.com
PRICE: $249.99
REQUIREMENTS: USB

Big 2.5-inch LCD monitor. Good image stabilization.

No optical viewfinder.

COMMENTS: 2

TAGS: point-and-shoot camera

COMMENTS

Lack of optical viewfinder - deal breaker
Submitted by dRStone (not verified) on Tue, 2008-07-01 11:10

The lack of an optical viewfinder is a deal breaker for those of us with older eyes who use glasses (especially bifocals). I just can't focus well on a screen held away from the eyes. Holding that large and heavy an object at arm's length is fatiguing, making fine picture composition (aiming and framing) difficult. Also, the sun shining on the LCD makes the image and the colors difficult to see. In the dark, lit LCDs change your eye's dark adaptation and your perception of the scene. I have loved Canon cameras for many years, but this one won't be.

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Beware of Canon warranty repair
Submitted by izzwuzz on Thu, 2008-08-14 12:59

My experience with Canon warranty repair has been inexcusable.
In the first year of owning a Powershot S60 the screen on the LCD became unreadable. I sent it in to canon for warranty repair on 1-26-06. It was returned to me on 2-17-06 in worse condition than when I sent it in. I sent it back again within a couple of days. It was finally returned in working condition on 3-14-06!!!!! That is a total of 7 weeks to have the camera repaired plus the cost of sending it in twice insured at a cost of approx. $25.00.
During that period of time I bought another Canon, the A620. I am disabled and photography is one of the few activities I can enjoy and at the time we were living in Hawaii and had no idea how much longer I would have to wait for the S60 to return, and if it would work when it returned either. So I bought the A620 is that it was the first camera I had seen with an articulating LCD which, for a guy with a broken back is a wonderful thing that allowed me to get pictures that allowed me to get pictures that I had been unable to get with any other camera. It was a nice digital point and shoot with a macro feature but I lost the raw capability of the S60.
In August of ’07 I bought a Canon, bad things happen with any company, S5IS. It too had the articulating LCD but it also had a 48X combined digital/optical zoom, image stabilization, face recognition and high definition movie function with the capability or 1 hour movies which for under $400.00 was worth it to me now that we had moved to Arkansas and the variety of birds was unbelievable and the A620 did not have a zoom capable of taking pictures of them.
Sorry but the saga continues! The S5IS zoom failed to work correctly and I sent it in to Canon for warranty repair on 7-13-08. The repairs were completed 7-23-08 and I received it a couple of days later in the exact same condition. I have sent it back for repairs and have no idea when or if it will ever be repaired.
SO beware, if your thinking about buying a camera, remember that, at Canon the person that inspects the repairs (if there is one) does not check to see if the camera has indeed been repaired. Two out of two of my Canon cameras were not fixed on the first time it was sent in for warranty repair.

Very disappointed, and not alone

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