Digital Camera's Item ID: #279Canon PowerShot SX20IS 12.1MP Digital Camera with 20x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.5-inch Articulating LCDProduct Information:
Item DescriptionWith the classically stylish PowerShot SX20 IS, you can produce magnificent HD movies and dazzling photos. Loaded with features, it’s got a high-powered 20x Wide-Angle Optical Zoom with Optical Image Stabilizer, 12.1 Megapixels, a big 2.5-inch Vari-Angle LCD, Blink Detection and more.
Powerful Zoom, True-to-Life Imaging. The PowerShot SX20 IS is equipped with a 20x Optical Zoom lens with a focal length of 5.0 – 100mm (35mm equivalent : 28 – 560mm) that allows you to shoot any scene from wide-angle to telephoto. The camera uses a VCM (Voice Coil Motor) for high-speed, quiet, energy-efficient lens movement with precise control. Focal length is conveniently indicated on the lens barrel. The lens is optimized to fully exploit its zoom length and wide shooting angle in concert with the camera’s high 12.1 Megapixel resolution. UD glass effectively suppresses chromatic aberration, while enhanced negative refractive power ensures that distortion at the wide-angle is also corrected. Further aberration is controlled with the in Item Reviews5 Responses to “Canon PowerShot SX20IS 12.1MP Digital Camera with 20x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.5-inch Articulating LCD” |
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I’ve owned the SX20IS for nearly 4 months now and have sampled literally every function this camera has to offer. Overall this camera offers some great features such as a 12mp sensor, 20X zoom lens, HD video w/ stereo sound, full manual and automatic controls, flip-out rotating screen, flash hot shoe, and Canon reliability. There are other positive things to say about this camera as well, these are key points.
On the other hand, my complaints are regarding the overall quality of images and video this camera produces. I will say this first, in well lit situations, this camera captures crisp photos and video with good color tones. However, when the lights begin to dim and you begin to increase ISO sensitivity, the limitation of the relatively small CCD sensor begin to show. The problem is that Canon tried to impress customers with a high pixel count and cram it onto a small CCD sensor. This of course increases pixel density to 43mp / cm2 and light sensitivity suffers. I would have preferred to see Canon build this camera with no more than 10mp to help this situtation. In that case, however, you may as well choose the SX1IS for it’s 10mp CMOS sensor or a G11 as it offers a sensor with a larger surface area for greater sensitivty.
The problem is that any ISO setting over 200 is noticeably grainy and gets worse the more you increase it. Plus, auto focus has to “hunt” to focus on your subject and sometimes it focuses on the wrong area. I tried to track moving subjects in daylight while zoomed and the camera would often loose focus or catch something in the background. This is likely do to the lens design rather than the sensor.
In general, this is a well designed camera with good intentions and is highly versatile. But, there in lies it’s weakness; it does many things well but not one thing great. It’s a jack of all trades, but a master of none. I don’t think it’s junk because in the right conditions image quality is good. Now that I’ve seen what it’s capable of, and comparing it to images from my old S3IS, I would recommend that potential buyers seriously consider a G11 for image quality, or the Nikon P100 as it offers lower pixel density, a CMOS sensor, 1080P video, a higher resolution screen, lithium battery pack and a more power zoom lens, though you do loose the hot shoe. The Sony DSC-HX1 is worth considering as well as models from Fuji and Olympus. If the hot shoe is that big of a deal for you and you can live without a super long zoom lens, just go to a SLR. I know it’s a pretty cool feature though.
And remember, overall pixel count is important, but it’s not the key deciding factor. Virtually every camera today features a 10mp or better sensor. This is plenty of resolution for anyone, do you really plan to print 12×16 photos? Also consider, sensor type (CCD or CMOS), sensor size (if listed) and maximum aperture range.
The camera was shipped and received in about 1 weeks time. The camera was defective out of the box. It showed “lens error”. A quick pohone call to Canon, and a total of 1 week (shipping and receiving return pkg)Canon warranted the camera faster than I could have returned it and received a replacement from Amazon. The price for this camera was quite good!!!
The SX20IS does an excellent job for stationary subjects. The view finder is too small for following birds in flight. Optical zoom matches my spouse’s S2IS performance. The digital zoom shots are all blurry, even with tripod. The camera is a huge step above the Sony Cybershot and Olympus models I have had.
The camera itself is quite nice for users that want more control but are not ready for SLR. However, the manual is terrible. For starters the complete manual is available only on CD, no hard copy. The manual is very poorly organized. I ended up writing my own summary instructions and keep them with the camera case. With so many functions, it is impossible to remember everything it does.
The lense cap is lose and easily lost. I just lost mine and came back to this site to find a replacement. Replacements seem to cost $12 and up.
The camera is fantastic. The 20x zoom allows me to fill the frame with a singer’s face while seating across the stadium in a concert, or to zoom in on a coach’s face (or a hot cheerleader, for that matter) while seating on the other side of a soccer field. There are several cool functions, like the sports setting that takes continuous photos – works best with faster grade SD cards. The battery life is not great – maybe 300 photos, half of which with flash. You’re better off not even turning off the camera and just setting the display to turn off after 20 seconds.
The only inconvenience of this camera is the use of 4 AA batteries. I haven’t yet purchased a set of rechargeable to see how long they last. Nonetheless, Canon’s idea that “you can pick up batteries in any store” is very unfriendly of the environment, and a built-in rechargeable battery is the way to go (it’s much more convenient to recharge the battery at home and plan ahead than to find a store to buy batteries, as they might be easily available in the US, but that’s not true in many other parts of the word). Where I live, 4 AA batteries cost over USD4.