Update 5/31/2011 You may want to consider the new SX230. It has a faster CMOS chip which will give you better low light picture quality. This was my biggest complaint with the SX210is.Update: 7-19-2010 The video that I posted today is to answer questions about the camera's cycle rate. It is not an overall camera review but a demonstration of how long it takes the shutter to fire and a demonstration of the "wicked fast" continuous mode. I posted the continuous mode photos on my Google Picasa account which can be viewed by going to my Amazon profile page.
I am a professional motion picture camera assistant and an advanced hobby photographer. I own a Nikon D90 and several other compact cameras. There are times that I wanted to bring a decent camera but didn't want to haul my SLR kit around with me. I have always felt like I had to make a big compromise until now. This camera captures amazing images for such a compact device. If wanted it also allows for full control of all aspects of your shots including ASA, shutter time and aperture. The HD video it captures is fantastic and it does this without the need to hand focus like my D90.
The first thing that you will notice when you get the camera is that it is very small. It is the size camera you can put in a belt case and forget you have it with you.
Controls I am use to more direct access to the controls but anyone who is familiar with SLR photography can easily navigate the controls without a manual. Amateurs or those unfamiliar with SLR controls have two great options, Auto or EZ mode. You can put this camera into the hands of an inexperienced photographer and if they can compose a shot, and have fundamental consideration of lighting, they can get technically great pictures.
Colors are accurate with excellent black detail for this price range camera. This camera achieves a level of image quality that was available only from professional SLR cameras a few years ago.
Once you turn on the camera, you are going to be impressed with the wide end of this cameras lens. For vista shots, it does not show wide lens distortion. For close wide shots, it does show an acceptable amount distortion that is fun to shoot with. When I took this camera on a family trip, I was easily able to hold the camera myself and get all 4 of us in the shot. The only issue that I have with this wide mode is that it will not fully translate in a standard 4X6 print. You will loose the sides of the pictures when you print. I hope that the 16X9 HD ratio will become a standard for future photo prints. Of course you can set the camera to shoot a standard 4X6 print
The long end of the zoom is equally amazing. The image stabilization seems as good as Nikon's VR system.
The SX210is focuses almost as quickly as my SLR Nikon D90 in still mode.
Contunuous ModeThe camera can record 2 FPS in continuous mode. It is a lot of fun to record action sequences or take a series of photos if you have the need to grab a lot of shots in a short time. I posted a few series of shots on my Google Picasa site that can be viewed through my profile page, or paste:Movie Mode The camera really shines in video mode, it focuses quickly and tracks action well. This Canon camera can continuously focus the image rather than having to press the button halfway to activate focus.
In video mode, the exposure shifts in steps rather than gradual transitions. In other words, the exposure could be good for a particular scene and as it transitions to a different lighting scenario the exposure clicks to the proper exposure. Dedicated video cameras transition more smoothly between different lighting conditions than still camera shooting in video mode.
It shoots 720p movies that rival a dedicated video camera. The optical 14X zoom is amazing. This camera could take the place of a stand-alone video camera for many people. The audio quality is good but not fantastic. You can notice the steady shot while shooting videos. It works well until you get to long end of the lens where you will notice that the image jumps around when you try to hold a steady frame. In reality, you would never want to shoot zoomed in all the way.
Con'sI'm getting picky here but you should know...
I would have liked a viewfinder. Shooting in bright sunlight can be difficult with the LCD screen. I also find that resting the camera against your head helps steady shots.
I wasn't really crazy about the exposed LCD screen. The screen is made of glass rather than plastic, which is nice. If placed LCD side down it does not rest flat on the screen. It instead rests on the mode rotary dial and the opposite corner of the camera. I wish manufactures would engineer a slightly raised screen bezel to prevent scratches to the screen.
I think it could have been better if the microphones were in front of, rather than on top of the camera. There isn't enough separation between microphones to realize stereo sound capabilities. The microphone is very susceptible to wind noise.
Low light mode is still slightly noisy compared to the D90. Don't expect a miracle low light camera and you won't be disappointed. Still it is a lot better than other compact cameras. Please see the low light photo I posted.
The pop-up flash for the camera is positioned where your left index finger would typically grip the camera. I keep forgetting to relocate my fingers when I turn on the camera. It works well for illuminating snapshots. I have found that it is a bit inconsistent. Sometimes it gracefully lights shots and other times it performs as a typical compact camera flash.
Conclusion:
I really love the camera and would purchase it again if I manage to destroy it or loose it. The zoom range is amazing and very useful. The color this camera captures is realistic and detailed. It is compact, easy to use and fun to shoot. It is not equal to a quality SLR camera but is clearly better than all of the compact camera's I have used. My impression is it's in-between quality in a compact body. It definitely sets a new standard.
If you have any questions or want other information that will help improve this review, please leave a comment. I'd be happy to repost any improvements.
My review is intended to give a overall consumer impression of this amazing little camera. I could have gone on for pages and there are plenty of professional reviews on the internet if you want to find out very specific information.
Don't forget to order a case or SD card when you order this camera as it comes with neither.
SD CARDS
I tried SD cards that ranged from a class 2 Panasonic to a class 10 SanDisk 30MB/s. It didn't make a lot of difference in the cycle rate the camera was able to shoot at.
I have 4 Transcend 8 Gig Class 10 cards that I primarily use with this camera. 10 Mbs write 16Mbs read. I would recommend them because they are a good value and download at a reasonably fast pace. If you decide to the card in the future for another application (like a video camera) you won't be stuck with a slow card that is obsolete.
BATTERIES
If you get a spare battery get the OEM Canon Battery. I was tempted to save and bought the Lenmar replacement battery. I would suggest you save your money. After the first few cycles it would read full on the camera's battery indicator but not be able to power the camera.
CASES
The Canon PSC-3100 PowerShot Case for Canon SX200IS Digital Cameras is really too large for this camera. See the posted pictures on Amazon's consumer photos. I went to an electronics store and tried all of the cases. I liked the Lowepro D-Pods 20 best. Amazon sells it for $9.23 and it's Amazon Prime too. This case is snug fitting and offers spare battery and card storage. I posted some snapshots and a video.
Avoid the temptation to put a compact camera unprotected in a jacket pocket. The dust and dirt contained within can work itself into the camera and optics. There is no easy way to address this.
I posted a video review there also.
Lowepro D-Pods 20 Camera Case (Black)
Lowepro D-Pods 20 Camera Case (Black)
Some sample photos are at my Picasa account that can be found in my profile page.
The search turned out to be much more difficult than I had expected. Frustratingly difficult I will add. No one camera is loved by all reviewers. So those of you reading this review, who are still searching, I feel your pain. I came to the conclusion that currently there is no perfect PNS that does it all. I would do hours of research on the web and then go to the local camera store to actually play with the PNS cameras that had caught my interest. In the end I concluded that there are 3 or 4 reasonably good PNS cameras out there, but all of them required me to compromise on something I wanted. So figure out what your must-haves are and sort through the available cameras accordingly.
Obviously I chose the Canon SX210. I have had it about 3 weeks now and have taken about 200 photos and about 6 HD movies. My comments in no particular order:
1. the Canon does a good but not outstanding job of taking photos under normal daylight conditions. I did play with several photos on my computer and kept zooming in on a particular point to see when the picture would deteriorate. Of course it did eventually, but again, since 8.5 x 11 is the max size I expect for any enlargement, I do not see any problem with the picture quality.
2. the HD video capability is more fun than I had expected. Again as already noted, the mic's are located on the top of the camera. Great for recording my commentary, but not so good for recording sounds coming from whatever you are videoing. One other point: the Canon allows you to zoom in while taking an HD video. That's great, but with 14X optical zoom, the more you zoom, the more susceptible the camera and the video you are taking is to shaking. If you zoom all the way to 14X, I found it impossible to avoid shaking when holding the camera in my hand. At no zoom, there is no problem with shake when taking a video. Bottom line: limit your zooming in when taking a video.
3. I agree with everyone else that placement of the pop-up flash and the telephoto zoom in-and-out mechanism is NUTS. What were the Canon engineers thinking ? However both are annoyances rather than deal-breakers.
4. the battery life is reasonable but not outstanding. I never ran out of battery life during a day of shooting photos and the battery re-charges in about 2-3 hours. Not bad.
5. Speed I bought 2 Sandisk Extreme III 4 GB Class 6 SD disks. I agree with the suggestions that you have to step up to a Class 6 disk to avoid serious delays when writing the photo to the disk. I also decided against one 8GB disk since I did not want all my pics on one disk. Back to speed I also turned off the automatic review after each photo taken, and found that improved the speed of the picture taking noticeably. You can also turn on continuous picture taking and take a "burst" of photos if so desired. Bottom Line: speed is fast enough for my needs.
6. Definitely buy a plastic shield (or cover?) to protect the 3" LCD screen on the back. The Apple Store has them if you can't find them cheaper any place else.
7. The camera feels surprisingly heavy to me. But solid. I guess 14X optical zoom does create some weight.
8. I set the camera on 9MP pictures since 14MP is overkill for me. I would never enlarge a photo to more than 8.5 x 11 anyway. I left the movie on HD settings however. Dumming down the photos to 9MP also improves the write-to-disk speed BTW.
9. Expect a serious learning curve with this camera. I printed out the manual from the PDF file and it is 180 pages. Not all was relevant to me and my interests, but still I have spent several hours reading and re-reading sections of the manual. Since I will not take the manual with me on my upcoming trip, I have to know how to manipulate this camera.
10. The 14X optical zoom is really impressive. While that was not a top consideration for me, having that capability is very cool. You can easily zoom in to an amazing degree on something from a considerable distance away.
11. Low-light I am still working on this one and how to manipulate the camera to get the best LL photos. In dim lighting it does OK by upping the ISO, so you pay a price in the quality of the photo. In the black of night it does OK if the subject of the photo is not more than 6-8 ft away from you. But I tried a photo at night of the moon shining off the Pacific ocean from my balcony and that did not work. Not a real surprise, but like I said, I need to experiment more in this area.
In summary I would describe this camera as being a really solid good versatile PNS. You can put it on full Auto and snap away happily, or switch to one of several pre-defined settings (landscape, portrait etc), or if you are really into it, go all the way to completely manual and set everything yourself. That's not for me but you do have that capability. The HD Videos are great, but even a short one takes up about 80-90MB of disk space. And as noted, you are unlikely to pick up the sounds from whatever it is you are videoing. PS: I have never encountered the much discussed problem with lens shadow.
All-in-all a solid performer in an amazingly small form factor that will do what I am looking for and more on my upcoming trip to Europe.
10/10/2010 update: Just returned from my 3 week trip to Europe and wanted to update my review. Took about 1,500 photos and about 30 movies. And right now I am in the midst of reviewing them on my home computer. So how did the Canon perform ? It was terrific. First off I really appreciated the small form factor on the trip. It easily fit into a slot in my messenger bag that I used on the trip or into a front pants pocket. I was able to quickly retrieve it and snap photos very rapidly. Never missed a shot I wanted to take. Second the zoom feature turned out to be very useful when I wanted to take a photo of something in a museum or art gallery along with 1,000 other tourists. I would stand as tall as I could and zoom in over the heads of the crowd and 90% of the time could snap a great photo. Third I took a lot of photos inside churches and art museums where flash was not permitted. Especially stained glass windows in several cathedrals. When I took the photo I could tell from the sound of the shutter, that the camera was using a very slow shutter speed. Most times I was taking the photo with only my hands to hold the camera and always hoping that the image stabilization software would do a good job. Now that I am home I can tell you that the IS software did a remarkable job. I have had to delete about 5-10 photos at most. It truly is impressive. Fourth the movie feature turned out to be very worthwhile. As I look at the movies now, I am impressed with how faithfully the camera captured what I was viewing at the time. Fifth battery life was terrific. Never had any problem during the day when I would be taking the photos. However I did recharge the battery most every night. Overall for me and what I am looking for in a point and shoot camera with a compact form factor the Canon SX210 turned out to be a perfect choice. Highly recommended.This is a very fun compact camera. I don't believe they upgraded the sensor from previous Powershot cameras so the picture quality isn't a miracle or anything. What is really cool about the sx 210 is the zoom lens. I get shots with this camera that just wouldn't have been possible with my old Elf. There is such a huge difference between using the true optical zoom on this or the digital zoom of my old camera. In that way, there is sort of an increase in picture quality because I can get in close on my subject and not have to crop my pictures and lose resolution later.
The video function is also a plus. The sound from the stereo mic is decent and, again, the zoom lens really comes into play in terms of the shots you can get. I've shot videos of my kids on stage, clear across a large hall, and really come up with some nice clips.
I haven't used the manual settings on this camera as much as I thought I would. I've found it difficult to focus accurately or quickly enough with the little wheel. I play with it sometimes for macro shots and such but, primarily, I've used the automatic function to good effect. Someone who wants to spend the time and play with the various functions and gimmicks will probably enjoy this quite a bit. I tend to have my hands full these days and it has been very useful as a point and shoot, enhanced significantly by the ability to zoom in close.
The pop-up flash takes some getting used to but over time I've come to like that feature. There are a lot of times I don't want the flash to fire and it's nice to be able to just snap it shut or hold it shut as you turn on the camera. It becomes second nature eventually.NOTE: If you are confused about some of the issues brought up in the negative reviews, including the LENS SHADOW ISSUE, please read my commentary under the UPDATE section at the end of this review and feel free to ask any additional questions.
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REVIEW
People have already written excellent reviews for the black version of this camera and, obviously, everything applies to the Gold version as well. I will summarize my own experience with the camera and update the review as I learn more. Feel free to ask any questions.
I am a hobbyist and own a Canon DSLR with some high end lenses and accessories. It's a great setup, but because of its size and weight I rarely have it with me. I got sick of missed opportunities and knew I needed a pocket camera to take with me everywhere.
I've owned a Canon Powershot SX110IS 9MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black) previously and thought it was great, which is why I considered getting the Canon PowerShot SX120IS 10MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Images Stabilized Zoom and 3-inch LCD this time. However, it's not pocketable, so I've also considered the amazing Canon PowerShot S90 10MP Digital Camera with 3.8x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3-inch LCD, Panasonic DMC-LX3 10.1MP Digital Camera with 24mm Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black), and Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX1/H 10MP "Exmor R" CMOS Digital Camera with 3-inch Touch-Screen LCD (Grey). These are all great on their own, but lack the zoom, and Sony also lacks manual modes. When I finally saw an SX210 at a local store, I almost bought it on the spot. It's pocketable yet boasts 14x optical zoom and all the benefits of the SX120 plus more!
Color: The Gold color is actually quite pleasant. It isn't the "bling" bright yellow gold as it might appear on pictures. It's a softer champagne-like gold that I personally love. It's perfect if you want something unique, yet not obnoxious. I was excited that Canon provides a color choice for this camera.
Size: The SX210 isn't as tiny as some Elphs or other manufacturer's (like Sony) pocket cams, yet it's borderline pocketable and quite light. I can put it in the back pocket of fitted jeans comfortably, although I definitely recommend a pouch (it won't fit into my back pocket with a pouch though).
Design: Nothing special about the design, but it looks classy and serious. Looks much more substantial than the somewhat plasticky SX1XX line. There aren't many buttons, but it's enough for easy and fast operation. If you've used Canon point and shoots before, you'll find the interface familiar, although it looks more sleek and refined than the slightly outdated SX110 interface.
The control (not the mode) dial is actually not physically labeled. BUT when the camera is on, touching the control dial slightly will display the functions of the buttons. Touch the left side of the dial and it will highlight the function for the left button and bring up a brief description. This allows for a dynamic arrangement of functions in various modes and although it took a little getting used to, I'm a big fan.
The mode dial is way too stiff for my liking and requires two fingers to operate. At least it won't change accidentally...
The flash position did startle me at first, but now I don't mind it at all. Yes, your finger is over the flash and it tries to pop up when you turn the camera on. However, the finger will suppress the flash popping up, and most of the time you don't want flash up anyway. So it's strange, but it works out in the end.
Screen: I would prefer a regular aspect ratio screen to the wide one on the SX210. It's catered towards HD video, but I use it more for pictures, so with the black borders around pictures it effectively becomes a 2.5" screen. But it's a minor drawback and the screen is gorgeous otherwise. It's much more accurate in terms of colors and exposure than the Sony TX1 screen I've tried.
There isn't much of a bezel around it, so I'd recommend a screen protector. (Don't use those film ones, use a stiff glass or plastic one. There are many available on amazon and ebay you don't need a specifically SX210 one, just get one big enough and cut it to size. What I did is get a screen protector from a local Verizon store they have nice stiff ones for the touchscreen phones like Droid and cost only $12 for 3 of them. When the protector is on, it looks exactly like the screen without a protector, which cannot be said about those film ones).
Operation: It's not the fastest camera around and the zoom is a little slow, although smooth. I've found it to be just fine for everyday shooting and the smooth zooming works great on videos (with other cams I'd often overshoot). As I said, the interface is in line with most Canon's point and shoots.
Image quality: Canon rarely disappoints in this aspect. The images are perfectly sharp (unlike the Sony TX1) and the colors are vivid yet accurate (unlike some Panasonic and Sony cameras). At lowest ISOs and regular conditions, the quality rivals some DLSRs. As in many point and shoots, noise becomes visible starting at ISO 400, but that's the price you pay for a 14x optical zoom. Low light pictures are not as good as the lead cameras' such as the S90, but they're not any worse than most point and shoots and are just fine for printing.
Lens: The lens is in line with most point and shoots today (f/3.1 to f/5.9). The zoom is very smooth (and you can control the speed), although a little slow. 14x is amazing and image stabilization works great. No noticeable distortion.
Flash: Nothing special, average for point and shoots. Good exposure. In auto mode, the camera does a great job trying to balance the background and foreground when using flash. Careful though, it might crank the ISO up to keep detail in the background when you shoot in low light.
Video: HD and normal video is great. The same awesome image quality as in picture mode. Videos look crisp and colors are great. The auto focus performs perfectly, works very quickly, and is very accurate even for moving subjects.
Many cameras won't allow you to zoom while taking videos, but this isn't a problem with the SX210. Since the camera is so small, camera shake is inevitable, so I would avoid zooming in too much if you're not using a tripod or a monopod. Audio is fine. Stereo audio sounds great on paper, but I don't hear much difference. Note that HD video eats memory cards in no time, so if you're just taping for web or the like, just change it to normal quality.
The dedicated video button is very useful to have! Can't tell you how many times I forgot to get into or out of video mode with other cameras. It still has a video mode, it just makes it faster and easier to shoot video on the go.
Features: This camera is pretty impressive in terms of features, both the serious ones such as manual modes and the more gimmicky features you see in lots of newer point and shoots cameras today. Here is a summary.
-Auto and Easy modes: intelligent scene recognition works great most of the time. Even I use Auto often instead of manual modes as it is very reliable.
-Manual, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Program modes: godsend for point and shoots. You might not think you need them now, but if you start learning about photography more, you'll be glad you have them!
-Scene modes: All the general ones like sports and portrait, as well as cool unique ones such as:
-Smart shutter: camera automatically takes the picture when either a smile is detected, a new face is detected, or 2 seconds after a wink is detected. All of these are customizable and work just as described! Very useful for self portraits and such. As a backup, the camera fires after about 15 seconds even if it didn't detect anything, so no missed shots because it didn't recognize a face.
-Low light: Lowers resolution to improve quality. Sets ISO is pretty high. Nothing amazing, but good results.
-Color Accent and Swap: Canon's favorite isolate a color (with the rest in black and white), or swap two colors)
-Fisheye effect: Look at sample fish eye images online. Just a fun effect. You can control amount of distortion.
-Miniature effect: Nothing like a true tilt-shift, but gets decent results. Blurs parts of image to make an illusion of a miniature. Customizable.
-Stitch assist: helps taking panoramas
-My Colors: tinker with colors can add/subtract saturation or accent reds/greens/blues, can lighten/darken skin tones, etc. Great settings I use a lot.
-White Balance: learn to use custom white balance it's quite painless and yields amazing accuracy in white balance. Use an opaque white object or a white wall to fill the frame, just press a button, and the white balance is set perfectly.
-Exposure Compensation for flash and for general exposure
Battery: I loved how the SX120 uses AAs (long lasting and easily available), so I was a little skeptical about the SX210. But I wasn't disappointed the battery started getting low only after a week of moderate usage including many videos. Replacement batteries are very cheap ($5 off-brand).
Other:
Something else unique about this camera is it recognizes SDXC memory cards the successor to the SDHC cards that will surely become popular soon. They allow for bigger read/write speeds and capacities of 64GB and more.
As with any new gadget, I recommend reading almost the entire manual. I have quite a bit of experience in cameras, and yet I always find something new or peculiar in the manuals. For example, you can press and hold the Disp button and it will bring up the brightness to 100%. Do it again to go back to your custom brightness setting. This is great if you keep the brightness down to save battery, yet need it up when it's bright and you're outdoors. Beats going through menus any day!
If you press and hold the center button (Func/Set), the camera will bring up a clock. To do the same from when the camera is off, press the center button and while holding it, press the power button.
What I would've liked from other cams incorporated into the SX210:
-Faster operation and zoom.
-Better low light performance.
-Faster lens (f/2 would be great at wide end).
-Better macro mode. I miss the SX110's ability to focus at 1cm for gorgeous pictures. SX210 focuses at a comparatively disappointing 5cm.
Gimmicks:
-Capacitive touch screen for focus points and faster operation.
-GPS sensor for geotagging, since this camera is so perfect for travel.
-WiFi to upload pictures onto the web or even onto smartphones on the go.
Conclusion:
This one is definitely a keeper for me and it will never leave my side, even when I have my DSLR with me!
The pros outweigh the cons and this camera definitely beats the competition. The price is right too and will definitely come down soon.
Sorry for the very long review, but I am very excited about this find and I hope this helps. Feel free to ask any questions.
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UPDATE 5/3/2010
Re: LENS SHADOW ISSUE from other reviews (A copy of my reply in the discussion of the black version of the camera):
Stephen (top review author of the black SX210), AAAA (another owner of the SX210), and myself have all had a frustrating experience with J. Collins. I would not take his reviews into account, as they can be quite misleading. Unfortunately, he does not respond well to logic either. Please instead read about other people's experiences with the camera and ask any other questions you might have from knowledgeable and logical people such as Stephen.
From my experience with DSLRs, many point and shoots, and the SX210 itself, the flash shadow issue is MINOR. It is certainly true that the LENS CAN CAST SHADOWS, but:
1) As Stephen said, this is INHERENT to many cameras, even top of the line professional ones. It's physics. (Also, forget about using macro mode with flash, NO camera is going to give you even lighting).
2) The shadows ONLY appear when there is something within about 1m of the camera on the right side of the frame.
3) The shadows CAN BE ELIMINATED easily if you zoom in a little (and stand back to get the same composition if needed).
4) ASK YOURSELF: how many times have you taken shots that required flash and which had a subject in the right side of the frame that was closer than 1m to the camera? Look through old pictures to see whether you have indeed been in this situation. If so, ask yourself whether you'd be okay with either cropping the picture or zooming in a little.
5) If you find yourself in situations described above often and are not okay with the solutions, then LOOK FOR A DIFFERENT CAMERA. Obviously, a camera with an internal lens will work best. Be prepared to sacrifice optical zoom.
6) If this is a minor issue to you (it's not even an issue to me personally) and if you're reading this, you'll probably love this camera as it is one of the best all-around point and shoots around.
Re: Battery life
I'm waiting for some official review with controlled testing to see whether it is really that much worse than AAs. I don't notice a difference myself even though I owned an AA camera, but I don't shoot consistently enough to be sure. The battery life has been fine so far and the batteries are as cheap as rechargeable AAs. Also, it is worth noting that this same battery has been used in other cameras. Although power consumption obviously varies from device to device, it is worth checking out the reviews of other cameras with the same battery. I'll try to research that myself as well.
I'll update if I learn more.(This text is posted on my personal website along with sample images and video.
[..]
I am excited about Canon SX210 IS camera. I read the specs Canon published back in February 2010. It had features I was looking for. I pre-ordered this camera before reading any reviews.
Here's what I liked about this camera:
Quality of pictures
HD 720p video
14x optical zoom with image stabilizer.
Optical zoom functions when shooting video (a biggie)
Mode wheel
Secondary 4-way controller with scroll wheel
Face detection
Physical
The SX210 is not a tiny camera like my Casio EX-H10 or even the EX-V7. It's about an inch and a quarter thick including the extension for the lens. Double the thickness of my Casio EX-H10. It's about half and inch wider than the smaller Casio. It is still very pocketable. But you can't put it in the front pocket of your jeans like you can the thinner Casio. I'm fine with the size. I usually wear carpenter pants with an extra pocket on the side. The camera fits in the extra pocket just fine. Considering the wonderful zoom I have no right to fault the camera size. That said, if you need an ultra compact camera to slide into a narrow pocket, the SX210 IS may not be the right choice.
Features
The zoom lens is pretty remarkable. It extends out from the camera about 2.5". It can shoot a wide angle shot of a building and then zoom in on the door close enough to read the numbers. Check out the clock tower picture in the samples. What incredible range this lens has. It's quiet and smooth as it moves. The zoom has two speeds. It can be hard to move only at the slower speed. The zoom button is quite small. It's hard to hold it with consistent pressure. Is it a problem? No. It's just a trade off with a small camera. The macro mode is excellent too.
HD video with zoom was a must for me. I have a Sony HDR-HC5 HDV camcorder. It takes very good videos. Ever since I've had it, the standard def video of my cameras just hasn't been desirable to me anymore. This SX210 shoots video at 720p or 1280 x 720 px. My HDV shoots at 1440 x 1080 px. The video is interlaced. The Canon SX210 video is progressive scan. Overall the Canon video quality is very good. The ability to zoom while shooting is fantastic. I recorded my daughter at her swim class and was able to keep her full frame for the length of the pool.
Mode wheel. The more camera's I've had the more I want this feature. I used to love the novelty of the 'on screen' interface. I've grown tired of it. Of course it is necessary because of the enormous number of parameters which can be changed. The mode wheel on this camera can get to selections which are 10 menu button clicks deep on the Casio. I like the Portrait, Landscape, and Movie are points on this wheel. So just by turning this knob to the icon the camera switches into this mode immediately. In bright sunlight I don't have to even look at the screen to know I'm a new mode. The movie mode on the knob is great, but Canon did one better and made a dedicated movie button. When you're in any mode you can click the red button and immediately start shooting movies. Casio has always done this and I love the feature. The red button is configurable to do a variety of things, movie mode is the default.
The camera has, what is now a standard, 4-way control disc. You click up, down, left and right with a select button in the middle. The 4-way controller on this Canon is also a scroll wheel. So when you are moving between pictures in playback mode you can quickly shoot between images by turning the wheel quickly with your thumb. This scroll wheel is used to navigate the camera menus too. The optical zoom controller also works in playback mode. You can zoom back so 50+ thumbnails are on screen. All actions are very very quick. No lag or waiting for the images to display and move.
The flash is great too. Not for it's performance, though it seemed to work fine. I didn't really test it much. I like the way it works. It pops up when the camera is turned on. 90% of the time when I turn the camera on my finger is on top of the flash and it doesn't pop up. Not a problem, blocking it doesn't harm it. If I need it I just pull it up to turn it on. I like this very obvious and direct control over the flash. I don't like to have to click a menu 4 times to turn it on or off. Many times I'm at a venue where flash isn't allowed. Using an on screen menu isn't nearly as obvious pushing the flash down and knowing with certainty it will not fire.
The SX210 has great face detection. I like this feature because it draws green boxes around faces it recognizes and guarantees the face you want will likely be in focus. I know many many cameras do this, but this one seems quicker to find the faces and focus. The wink shutter is a neat idea. We tried it and had to wink several times to invoke it. I'm sure with practice I could make it work more reliably. It's fun but also a feature I'm unlikely to use often. Still fun to play with. Smile shutter takes pictures automatically any time it sees a smile. This could be fun to set up for a party. I find it incredible that a camera now truly 'sees' what it's taking pictures of. It recognized the face of a statue I took a picture of, as well.
The camera has continuous focus. Instead of pushing the shutter button halfway down to force focus the SX210 is always focusing. I like it.
I've had the camera less than a week. I still have more to learn about it. The menu structure is simple with the AUTO setting or deep with the manual modes. I think this camera is a wonderful choice for someone who wants a camera and a video camcorder. It does both very well.
I highly recommend the Canon SX210 IS. It's a very enjoyable camera to use.
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