Recently I purchased the brand new Canon PowerShot SX230HS. This camera has a lot of technology built into it and is a fun camera to use.
This camera comes in black, blue and what Canon calls red but looks more like hot pink. Overall the camera is awesome for travelers or just everyday moment capturers-ish. However this camera isn’t suitable for professional cameramen or those who intend to become professional at it. Obviously if you are 1 of the 2 and don’t have and SLR you should purchase an SLR instead.
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Canon SX230HS- Black Model |
The same way as last time I reviewed the good and bad features of the camera and then expanded on each of them
THE GOOD
· 12.1MP CMOS sensor
· Weighs just over 220 grams
· Records video at 1080p at 24fps
· 3inch LCD screen
· 14x zoom
· GPS logging
· Manual Control
THE NOT SO GOOD
· Battery life is short
· GPS takes a while to connect
The 12.1 megapixel CMOS sensor takes photos at a high resolution that is perfect for TV screens as well as projectors. I just loved its clarity and the photos were still amazing when they were really far away because of the amazing optical zoom. Even better, in programs like Adobe Photoshop or iPhoto digital zooming is no problem. The picture keeps its clarity till nearly fully zoomed
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The camera lens when the camera is turned on |
It is an amazingly light camera with all the features it comes with but it was slightly thick, still fitting into a pocket. This was annoying sometimes because a slim camera would fit even better in your pocket, but if you’re the person that carries around a camera bag or any other type of bag and you don’t want an SLR this is perfect
The 1080p video recording is very clear and was excellent outside. But when the recording was in low light the whole screen was a blur and out of focused. However the low-light sensitivity worked well in the photo mode. Other than the normal video recording mode (which is in HD) there were two other options to shoot with. The first one was i-Frame recording. This was just a video recording mode that made it easier to transfer to Mac users that use iMovie or iPhoto to collect or organize your video and photos much easier to transfer. The other mode, which I enjoyed a lot, was Super Slow Motion. In this mode the camera compensated quality for 240fps. Even though the area has to be well lit for this to work, it recorded everything 10 times slower than real time. So a simple jump off something looked awesome.
The giant 3inch LCD screen is one of the largest and clearest LCD screens I have seen on a camera. The quality of the screen was clear even in sunlight. The camera comes in a 4:3 shooting mode, which isn’t great for the 16:9 screen, but it can be easily changed in the settings
The compact mega zoom built into this camera got you as close to the subject as possible. I mean its 14X, for a compact-ish camera that’s a lot. (It’s not exactly the slimmest camera out)
The GPS geo-tagging in this camera was accurate but unfortunately slow to start up just like a normal GPS. If you like this camera just because of the GPS, then you should take a look at the Casio Exilim EX-H20G.
The manual control is a nice add-on to the camera and I ended up using it quite frequently. It gave you overall control of the camera. There’s also an easy mode, which is even simpler than Auto mode and literally the total opposite of the manual mode. The Easy mode takes care of everything, to the next level, but I didn’t use this feature too much.
Even though this camera is a great camera there are some slight issues.
The first one is the battery. Unfortunately the battery in the camera will only last a full day of shooting(approx. 250 12.1 MP shots, 10 mins HD recording and constant manipulating of the zoom). Obviously this can be replaced with another battery, which can be easily purchased.
Hope you enjoyed this and found it useful.
If you did please leave a comment below,
Thanks,
Nithin