The first time I saw the Canon PowerShot SX230 HS my eyes immediately focused little bump on top of the it that said "GPS." Â I was curious to know how it integrated GPS into my photo taking and later found out that it added location info to my photos as well as could track where I was on the disc inside the box. However what I really ended up enjoying was the image quality, amount of options I had, and the video quality. Canon has done allot of work to improve the night time imaging in this new powershot as well as add 1080p high definition video which I will get into later.
Photo Quality
The first time I used this camera indoors was in a dimly lit auditorium watching a friend get her nurses pin. Â I was really interested in seeing how this camera would perform in low light while while using the the zoom lens. Â A couple nights later after taking some night photos downtown and later stopped in at a bar and took some pictures there. The photos turned out ok but I still noticed a grainy finish to some of them; this was to be expected though since I wasn't using a flash the aperature (iris inside the lens that controls the amount of light that reaches the chip) was wide open. I was still impressed by the color and quality and felt as though I was stretching the limits on what this camera would do. If I had used a flash the quality would have been much better.
Video Mode
I was really impressed with the video modes. Of course it has the standard video mode which is common to the digital camera market, but then it also will shoot in apple's iFrame format and super slow motion. It's been my experience that many point and shoot cameras put video on the back burner but this one hasn't. The other feature I really enjoyed was the movie digest which will take a few seconds of video clip with the picture. It's the first time I have been able to take video and movies at the same time which was invaluable while shooting at the pinning ceremony I mentioned earlier.
Features
This camera was packed with features! It comes with a scene mode as well as well as a different filters that will allow you to do things like taking black and white photos, fish eye, poster etc. Â Most of the filters are something that you can do in a good photo editing program, however, if you don't have one of these readily available then you will really enjoy making use of these options.
Features:
SCN:
Filters:
Cons:
Flash Placement:
There were some things that really bugged me about this camera. Chief among them is the location of the flash. Canon placed the flash right where I rest my finger! They even put a curved indentation there for for my finger on top of the flash. So even though I don't use it much it's still an annoyance to deal with. Fortunately I can still open and close the flash manually which makes for a decent work around.
Battery:
The battery is rather smallish and doesn't last very long. I charged it when I went to the ceremony and was shooting movies as well as taking photos and I had to recharge it on my way to the dinner immediately afterward.
GPS:
This is compounded by the fact that GPS logger drains the battery even when the camera is turned off. Speaking of GPS I don't like that I am having to go through multiple menu options to access it. I hope that with the next camera that Canon releases that they will find a way to made the GPS functions more easily accessible.
Although I I have mentioned the previous cons, I figure every camera is going to have some minor issues. This Camera does a great job taking photos while at the same time not neglecting video. With its' 14x zoom it makes a great camera for all around use and I would recommend it to anyone.
If you are still searching for more information you can find photos and a complete review at squidoo.com/shutterreview
Photo Quality
The first time I used this camera indoors was in a dimly lit auditorium watching a friend get her nurses pin. Â I was really interested in seeing how this camera would perform in low light while while using the the zoom lens. Â A couple nights later after taking some night photos downtown and later stopped in at a bar and took some pictures there. The photos turned out ok but I still noticed a grainy finish to some of them; this was to be expected though since I wasn't using a flash the aperature (iris inside the lens that controls the amount of light that reaches the chip) was wide open. I was still impressed by the color and quality and felt as though I was stretching the limits on what this camera would do. If I had used a flash the quality would have been much better.
Video Mode
I was really impressed with the video modes. Of course it has the standard video mode which is common to the digital camera market, but then it also will shoot in apple's iFrame format and super slow motion. It's been my experience that many point and shoot cameras put video on the back burner but this one hasn't. The other feature I really enjoyed was the movie digest which will take a few seconds of video clip with the picture. It's the first time I have been able to take video and movies at the same time which was invaluable while shooting at the pinning ceremony I mentioned earlier.
Features
This camera was packed with features! It comes with a scene mode as well as well as a different filters that will allow you to do things like taking black and white photos, fish eye, poster etc. Â Most of the filters are something that you can do in a good photo editing program, however, if you don't have one of these readily available then you will really enjoy making use of these options.
Features:
SCN:
Smart Shutte: Will wait till your subject smiles to take the photo
High Speed Burst: Takes continuous shots.
Best Image Selection: Takes multiple images and chooses the best one.
Night Scene: Optimized for night time shooting.
Low Light: Optimized for low light shooting.
Beach: Shoots natural scenes in strong sunlight
Under Water Optimized for underwater enviroments. (See the water proof case sold seperatly if you plan on doing this.)
Foilage: Captures vivid colors of plants
Snow: Optimized for capturing bright snowy scenes.
Fireworks: Captures the bright photos of fireworks.
Switch Assist: Helps in taking panoramic photos that can be stitched together.
Filters:
Fish Eye: Has fish eye lens affect.
Miniature: Blurs top and botton for a toy camera affect.
Toy Camera: Darkens edges for toy camera affect.
Monochrome: Black and white photo.
Super Vivid: Take pictures with super vivid colors.
Poster Affect: Has a "posterized" affect.
Color Accent: Keeps only a selected color and changes everything else to black and white.
Color Swap: Changes 1 color to another while shooting.
Cons:
Flash Placement:
There were some things that really bugged me about this camera. Chief among them is the location of the flash. Canon placed the flash right where I rest my finger! They even put a curved indentation there for for my finger on top of the flash. So even though I don't use it much it's still an annoyance to deal with. Fortunately I can still open and close the flash manually which makes for a decent work around.
Battery:
The battery is rather smallish and doesn't last very long. I charged it when I went to the ceremony and was shooting movies as well as taking photos and I had to recharge it on my way to the dinner immediately afterward.
GPS:
This is compounded by the fact that GPS logger drains the battery even when the camera is turned off. Speaking of GPS I don't like that I am having to go through multiple menu options to access it. I hope that with the next camera that Canon releases that they will find a way to made the GPS functions more easily accessible.
Although I I have mentioned the previous cons, I figure every camera is going to have some minor issues. This Camera does a great job taking photos while at the same time not neglecting video. With its' 14x zoom it makes a great camera for all around use and I would recommend it to anyone.
If you are still searching for more information you can find photos and a complete review at squidoo.com/shutterreview
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