The new Canon PowerShot SX10 IS the new perfect digital camera. The Canon SX10 IS loaded with a full range of performance and convenient features that camera enthusiasts have come to expect from this company.
The new Canon PowerShot SX10 IS digital camera features a wide-angle (28 mm - 560 mm) 20x optical zoom lens, an Optical Image Stabilizer, new DIGIC 4 image processor and a smooth, curved grip that fits in the hand comfortably. The Canon SX10 IS capable of capturing long-range shots of soccer field action from the bleachers or sunsets from your hotel balcony easier.
First things first – the optically stabilized 20X zoom lens on the Power Shot SX10 IS covers a 35mm film equivalent focal range from 28 to 560mm; here's what that range looks like in the real world.
The camera features a 2.5 inch variable angle LCD monitor in addition to a viewfinder, with a 10 megapixel sensor and Canon's latest generation DIGIC IV image processor with "improved face detection, servo AF, face detection self-timer and intelligent contrast correction for greater flexibility." As you might have surmised, intelligent contrast correction is Canon's way to expand the camera's dynamic range, and it can be enabled as a camera setting as well as be applied in camera for post processing of captured images. The camera has a nominal ISO range from 80 to 1600 at full resolution, with ISO 3200 available at reduced resolution (1600 x 1200 pixels, or about 2 megapixels). There is a hot shoe for mounting an external flash, and the SX10 IS can make use of SD/SDHC or MMC card media.
The Canon SX10IS 2.5 inch LCD monitor has approximately 230,000 pixel composition and offers 100 percent coverage. It is articulated and can rotate through 270 degrees in addition to swinging out from the camera body.
There are two settings of brightness, neither of which can overcome the glare of direct sunlight on a bright day – the monitor is difficult to use for image composition or review under these conditions. Competitors in the class generally offer 2.7 or 3.0 inch monitors these days, which may put the PowerShot SX10 at a bit of a disadvantage, but conversely, the articulating feature is something few competitors provide.
There is also an unremarkable electronic viewfinder with diopter adjustment for individual user eyesight. The camera user guide doesn't specify, but the viewfinder appears to offer nearly 100 percent coverage as well.
Compared to the lenses on competitors, the SX10 IS lens was a bit of a disappointment in the maximum aperture category at the telephoto end of the zoom. The lens starts out at f/2.8 and reaches f/5.0 at about 200mm, with f/5.7 coming up just before reaching the 560mm mark.
With everyone else coming in at f/4.5 or faster, the f/5.7 of the PowerShot SX10 is giving up about two-thirds of a stop to the other brands. What this means is, all things being equal, if the fastest SX10 IS shutter speed to capture a particular image was 1/500 of a second, the competition would be able to shoot at about 1/840 of a second. Even in an age of stabilized lenses, higher shutter speeds are always welcome to help ensure sharp photos by helping cancel camera shake by the user. Or, you could always translate that wider maximum aperture into a lower ISO sensitivity setting, which is not a bad thing on small sensors with lots of resolution.
The lens can focus as close as 0.39 inches in macro and super macro modes, and 1.6 feet in normal operation.
Canon lists a flash range of up to 17 feet at wide angle and about 9 feet at telephoto when using auto ISO. There are auto, auto w/ red-eye reduction, flash on, flash on w/ red-eye reduction, flash off, flash exposure (FE) lock, safety FE, and slow synchro options available, depending on your shooting mode. The auto ISO requirement is the fly in the ointment with the built in flash – if you set ISO in the 80 to 200 sensitivity range that offers the best noise performance the flash is taxed to make these distances. In this regard the Canon SX10 would be a good candidate for an external flash for serious flash users.
The Canon PowerShot SX10IS features a lens shift (optical) type of stabilization. The feature may be disabled or set for continuous, shoot only or panning stabilization. Panning only stabilizes the effects of up and down movement, and there is no stabilization if the camera is shot in the vertical format.
Canon lists a 340 shot capability for alkaline batteries, and about 600 for NiMH rechargeable batteries; the alkalines I used seemed to approach the figure, but I used relatively little flash which might have been partially responsible for the performance. A couple of sets of rechargeables should provide more than enough juice for an all day shooting session.
The PowerShot SX10 IS offers evaluative, center-weighted, and spot metering methods, with evaluative being the default setting; it did a pretty good job dealing with the difficult high-contrast surf shots involving dark water and white water. While it would lose some highlights in extreme contrast situations.
The camera is equipped with an i-Contrast feature that may be used as a camera setting (set either off or as "auto') as well as a post processing tool for images already captured. The purpose of either is to bring up detail in dark areas without washing out detail in bright areas, thus expanding perceived dynamic range.
As the studio shots show, ISO 80 and 100 are basically indistinguishable, with 200 picking up some noise but still relatively clean.
ISO 400 is the tipping point for the SX10 IS, where noise may begin to become an issue when dealing with big enlargements: heck, even ISO 800 and 1600 don't look all that bad in the small shots, but the 100 percent crops tell a different story. Depending on the overall lighting of any particular shot, 400 could be OK or not so hot if you're making big enlargements. On the surf shots displayed previously in this section, they turned out not so great in print, but the studio shot here came out alright. You can take the worry out of the ISO setting by sticking with ISO 200 or less, but to do that you need to shoot with manual controls as the various automatic modes will be going with auto ISO.
As is the norm in the digital ultra zoom class, the Canon PowerShot SX10 IS looks and feels like a downsized DSLR, measuring out at 4.88 by 3.48 by 3.42 inches and weighing about 24 ounces in shooting configuration (batteries, memory card and lens hood installed).
Overall, that's a pretty hefty package for anything that's not an interchangeable-lens camera. The composite materials used for the camera body seem on a par for the class and the overall impression of build quality is good.
The Canon SX10IS features a deeply sculptured handgrip style body and contoured back that is small enough so the little finger of my right hand has no place to go but curl under the body, resulting in a firm and solid one-handed grip.
The index finger falls quite naturally to the shutter button in both one- and two-handed shooting. There is rubberized material at the front of the handgrip portion of the body, but it's as smooth as the plastics that make up the rest of camera exterior and really contributes little to improving the grip The same holds true for a patch of nubs molded in the plastic on the camera back in the thumb rest area – I'd prefer a really tacky material in these two locations, but the camera has an overall good feel in the hand.
External buttons and controls allow access to most shooting modes as well as many other settings that the user might want to change on the run, such as white balance, ISO sensitivity, exposure compensation, and continuous shooting modes. The portion of the camera back not taken up by the monitor is awash with buttons, but Canon has laid them out so as to minimize conflict with the thumb when shooting.
See the Canon PowerShot SX10 IS and Canon SX10IS full range here
This product was added to our catalog on Tuesday 23 September, 2008.
