Canon PowerShot SX230HS 12.1 Price Review

Color: Black

663 of 671 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars Only for serious picture takers, April 5, 2011
By Toua Yang See all my reviews
(REAL NAME) This review is from: Canon PowerShot SX230HS 12.1 MP Digital Camera with HS SYSTEM and DIGIC four Image Processor, 14x optical zoom (Black) (Camera) Pros:
1 advance camera in a small package. Has many of the features of the Canon DSLRs.
2 you may be able to edit the pictures inside the camera (color, cropping, filters)
3 HD video recording is awesome.
4 14X zoom plus 56X digital zoom.
5 GPS
6 Trigger shooting with smile or wink
7 Mini HDMI out put
8 Many modes to decide from. Tv, Av, M, P, Portrait, Landscape.Just to name some
9 Adjustable shutter up to 1/3200
10 Adjustable ISO from 100 3200
11 HS and IS makes this thing worth the money
12 Menus are easy to navigate (because its alike to the Canon DSLRs)
13 The mode selector dial goes all the way around without stopping.
14 Too many to list.

Cons:
1 Get your finger off the flash. The place of the flash takes a little to get used to
2 Battery life is awful
3 I have big hands so it is hard for me to grip it.
4 Aperture is only F3.1 large open
5 Flash charges slow, but is decent for a point and shoot (I’m so used to my Canon 430 EX ii speed lite on my DSLR)
6 Shutter speeds of one second or longer is restricted to only ISO 100.

Final Thoughts:
1 Canon makes many of the best Cameras if not the best. You get many of the DSLR technology compacted into this little thing.
2 If this camera had a F2 Aperture like the Canon S95, it could be Canon’s best point and shoot camera released to date, but there is a trade off when you want zoom. Both cameras are neck and neck in my book with the S95 edging it out by a hair due to F2.
3 The biggest difference between the SX230 and SX220 (UK) is the GPS. Why is not there a SX220 in the US? If you feel like importing one, it is about $80 less.
4 Love this camera so far. If you have a Canon EOS camera, it’ll be a sinch to use. I did not read the manual. Otherwise, if this is your 1st time using features like Tv and Av mode, then you will want to read a book.
5 The price is perfect, but may be just a tad lower. You get a great feature rich compact camera for this price. Do not get fooled by the touch or dual screen cameras. They’re only gimmicks. If you do not want to carry around a big DSLR, this is the one for you.
6 This camera is for my wife to replace her crappy Sony Cyber Shot. I own a Canon 7D.
7 The pros obviously out weigh the cons and there are really no deal breakers in the cons if I were you, I could stop reading reviews on this camera and just purchase it.

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196 of 203 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of five stars 1st Canon with GPS, March 28, 2011
By Jeff Wright See all my reviews This review is from: Canon PowerShot SX230HS 12.1 MP Digital Camera with HS SYSTEM and DIGIC four Image Processor, 14x optical zoom (Black) (Camera) I bought this camera as a substitute for my Canon SD800IS, where I was interested in to get the new GPS potential. I have a professional camera with my Canon 7D, so this is more of a family/trip camera.

Overall, I am happy the photo quality and manual features offered (control over contact level, aperture setting, flash level, etc.) Having a single button to shoot video is great. But, the battery life is much shorter than my old camera. I am to get around 200 220 photos (instead of 600+), with some videos thrown in, per battery with the GPS feature turned on. Purchase another battery. For the GPS: it takes about 1 2 minutes for the camera to lock on the satellites once outside. I think it is cool to see exactly where you took a photo and this will be neat for vacations (wish I had it for an Italy trip some years back).

I recommend this camera for anybody needing a super zoom with GPS. Just note the somewhat bulky size and have to carry another battery.

Pros:
Excellent daylight photos
Very good inside photos w/o a flash, for a compact camera
GPS feature usually works well, photo places show good in Apple Aperture
Zoom works quickly and they show a screen display for the zoom position
HD video works well
HDMI out is useful, but the cable is sold separately

Cons:
Battery life isn’t great with GPS on (about 200 photos/battery). The low battery display starts flashing red pretty early (with 25 30 left), so that may be a pro or con.
Camera is bulky in comparison to my old SD800IS, so get a case that will hold it. It’s 4.16×2.42×1.31in

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81 of 82 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of five stars Avant grade performer, low light champion., May 7, 2011
By NJ’s dad See all my reviews This review is from: Canon PowerShot SX230HS 12.1 MP Digital Camera with HS SYSTEM and DIGIC four Image Processor, 14x optical zoom (Black) (Camera) I have canon sx210 IS for nearly a year now, but when my baby spilled water over it, it stopped working and the cost of fix estimated by Canon fix service costed me nearly equal to a new sx210 IS price, that was when I decided to purchase this upgraded variant from Canon.

Most of features of this camera were also the part of its predecessor, but let us concentrate on the new features which make this one better than its’ predecessor:

Low light support: This is the most talked about feature, and this was be one of ‘THE reasons’ I chose this camera and it really worth a pat on back for this . The results are really amazing for a point and shoot group camera.

Super slow motion video: The results are really awesome. It’s amazing to see my baby; flipping her hair and running, trying to catch a butterfly in super slow motion! I should say that the slow motion choice with 240 fps is for brightly lit places; otherwise the results aren’t that good.

Full HD video: This certainly is an improvement over sx210 is, which can only shoot 720p videos. This makes the video quality of sx 230 HS exceptional.

GPS tracker: it’s a nice to have feature. I used it once but, this sucks the battery so I keep this choice off, all the time.

Other features worth mentioning:
14x zoom: it’s really amazing how they’re able to put 14x zoom in such small body. It’s worth mentioning the fact that these super zooms are only efficient if they come with auto image stabilization feature and let me ensure you that this camera as its’ predecessor sx210, does this job exceedingly well.

12 mega pixels: though SX 210 has 14 mega pixels but I could not think about this as a degrade. Too many pixels filled in a small camera, don’t do any good to image quality (though my wife still considers this as a degrade, can not help)

The low wait time: Between two shots is certainly an improvement over sx210.

Battery life: The charge drains out fast, so could tell you to have a standby battery with you if you’re planning to go out with this camera. This was the major reason I didn’t give it five star ranking.

Conclusion: I could recommend this camera to all of you who aren’t pleased with the image quality of your camera and need a camera which gives nice indoor image quality, specially under low lights. I’m using this camera for nearly a month now and I’m loving it and also bought a hard case for it this time remember.

Edit:
Suggestions
Wish I could edit, and upload my pics and videos online, straight from the camera thru wifi.
A camera mode to catch time laps videos, a feature alike to the one offered by many of the iPhone/iPad apps.
I know I’m asking for too much but my assertion is, if a free iPhone app can do this then why can not a decent canon camera?

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