Canon unveiled a new point-and-shoot camera a few days ago that will appeal to the novice (me) and professional (my husband) alike. We purchased one Saturday and have really loved using it. It has a lot of features that your SLR’s have, but without the complication or the separate lenses and body. It’s a mini me of sorts. My husband is as excited about this point-and-shoot as I am. That should give you an idea of the features that it comes equipped with. The SX100 comes with 8 megapixels and powerful 10X optical zoom. The other point-and-shoots that I looked at in that price range for the most part had either a 3X or 6X optical zoom. It also comes with image stabilization which is a definite perk. The one thing that it’s missing that I am used to is a view finder. Good luck finding a point-and-shoot with one of those anymore. It’s slim pickin’s. The SX100 does have a 2.5 inch LCD screen though which by far makes up for the lack of a view finder. The screen is very clear and large enough that you can see what you’re taking a picture of without the need to squint.
As far as options go, there are the standard settings that most point-and-shoots have preconfigured, like portrait, landscape, foliage, night time, etc. The SX100 give you Program, Tv, Av, and M settings so that you can set all of your options like ISO, f/stop, and shutter speed manually. This is the part that my husband was excited about. I’ve found since using the manual settings that I want to learn more about what they are and how they work. You can even do white balancing with preconfigured settings, or you can manually white balance so that you get exactly what you want. The macro setting is awesome. I am finding that I enjoy this feature the best so far. The closest the manual says you can get to an object and still focus is about a half an inch. I’ve tried this out and it holds true. The picture I’ve attached at the bottom of this post is a tomato about an inch in diameter in the morning dew, taken at about an inch away. The camera does come with video capability at 640x480 and 30 fps with sound. I tried this out and was able to view the video maximized on a 17” widescreen LCD monitor without any pixelization. The sound on the video is pretty good, but you do have to be careful not to bump the camera too much or you will get those noises on the video.
Now, you may think that setting all of these features is going to be difficult. Wrong! This is one of the easiest interfaces to get around in. There aren’t a ton of buttons to begin with, and they have pictures next to them to tell you what it does (like the flower symbol for the Macro setting). It does have a wheel on the back that you can either press in the four directions, or turn around in a circle to get around your menus. The four directions are considered buttons since they each do something different when you push them. The left side of the wheel allows you to set the Macro settings, the top button the ISO settings, the right button the flash settings, and the bottom what kind of shot you want to do (continuous, single, timed, etc.).
The best part…all of this comes at the reasonable price of $300. When we compared this camera to the others we saw in the store, we felt like we got the most options for the price. Canon is really making it a point to offer point-and-shoots that appeal to both the beginner and the pro who want a camera that has SLR features, but without the bulk of an SLR.
As far as options go, there are the standard settings that most point-and-shoots have preconfigured, like portrait, landscape, foliage, night time, etc. The SX100 give you Program, Tv, Av, and M settings so that you can set all of your options like ISO, f/stop, and shutter speed manually. This is the part that my husband was excited about. I’ve found since using the manual settings that I want to learn more about what they are and how they work. You can even do white balancing with preconfigured settings, or you can manually white balance so that you get exactly what you want. The macro setting is awesome. I am finding that I enjoy this feature the best so far. The closest the manual says you can get to an object and still focus is about a half an inch. I’ve tried this out and it holds true. The picture I’ve attached at the bottom of this post is a tomato about an inch in diameter in the morning dew, taken at about an inch away. The camera does come with video capability at 640x480 and 30 fps with sound. I tried this out and was able to view the video maximized on a 17” widescreen LCD monitor without any pixelization. The sound on the video is pretty good, but you do have to be careful not to bump the camera too much or you will get those noises on the video.
Now, you may think that setting all of these features is going to be difficult. Wrong! This is one of the easiest interfaces to get around in. There aren’t a ton of buttons to begin with, and they have pictures next to them to tell you what it does (like the flower symbol for the Macro setting). It does have a wheel on the back that you can either press in the four directions, or turn around in a circle to get around your menus. The four directions are considered buttons since they each do something different when you push them. The left side of the wheel allows you to set the Macro settings, the top button the ISO settings, the right button the flash settings, and the bottom what kind of shot you want to do (continuous, single, timed, etc.).
The best part…all of this comes at the reasonable price of $300. When we compared this camera to the others we saw in the store, we felt like we got the most options for the price. Canon is really making it a point to offer point-and-shoots that appeal to both the beginner and the pro who want a camera that has SLR features, but without the bulk of an SLR.
No comments:
Post a Comment