Canon Powershot SX10 IS: Kwanon comes roaring back

There was a time when Canon was just an outsider looking in with regards to digital ultrazoom cameras. Hey, why should they bother right? They got a nice DSLR line-up. Besides, the tried and tested S5 IS is still out on the market.Then one day, Canon woke up from the stupor they are in and realized that their S5 IS with a 12x zoom is loosing out on ultrazoomers that had ranges of 15x or more. So, they decided to whip up some technical magic and came up with the Canon SX 10 IS. I recently got hold of the Canon SX10 IS when my boss figuratively threw one at me with the order to give it a whirl. Although I had a ton of work to do, I had to grudgingly agree. Well, if you would believe that.

Overview

The Canon Powershot SX10 IS is a 10.1 megapixel, ultrazoom shooter with a 20x optically stabilized lens and the (now becoming usual) 2.5″ variangle LCD screen. The SX10 IS is touted by Canon as a replacement to their best-selling S5 IS. Would this camera have huge market following like the S5 IS? No idea but it certainly has the potential for it. Unlike the S5 IS that “only” has a 12x optically stabilized lens, the SX10 IS has a nice 20x lens that starts wider and then ends “narrower” than the S5 IS lens. The 35mm film equivalent focal range of the lens on the SX10 IS is a whopping 28-560mm. This makes it a bit longer than the 18x lenses of its nearest competitor, the Panasonic Lumix FZ28 and matches that of the Olympus SP-570UZ.

Aside from the 2.5″ variangle LCD monitor, the SX10 IS has an electronic viewfinder. The 10.1 megapixel sensor is coupled with Canon’s latest generation DIGIC IV image processor. According to Canon, the DIGIC IV processor has “improved” capabilities with regards to face detection, servo AF, face detection self-timer and intelligent contrast correction. You guessed it – the “intelligent contrast correction” is Canon’s way to expand the camera’s dynamic range. It can be used in two ways: enabled as a camera setting or as an in-camera feature for post processing of captured images. The camera has an ISO range of 80-1600 (a full resolution), with ISO 3200 available at reduced resolution (1600 x 1200 pixels, or about 2 megapixels). A hotshoe is present for mounting an external flash and the camera can use an SD/SDHC or MMC card for storing images. The usual shooting “image zone” and “creative zone” shooting modes of Canon can be found on the SX10 IS as well.

Build, Construction and Design

The SX10 IS is designed like a DSLR.To the newbie reader: note the term “like a DSLR” meaning it ain’t one. Measuring 124 x 88 x 87mm, the SX10 IS is quite a hefty camera. The body is made from the usual composite plastic used on most  cameras competing in the same class the SX10 IS is in and while the overall build quality is good, it doesn’t mean that the body is for rough and tough situations. Mind you, the kind of plastic used will break if dropped. Incidentally, Canon flagship Powershot G10 model has a tougher look, feel and build than the SX10 IS so if you want a nice rough and tumble camera that doesn’t have the heft of the SX 10 IS, you might want to go look at the Powershot G10.

The handgrip of the SX10 IS is roughly the same size and built as that found on the EOS XS/1000D or the EOS XSi/450D. The grip has a contoured back that the thumb would fit snugly on the grip so that the camera can be gripped comfortably and securely. In one-handed or two-handed shooting situations, the index finger falls naturally on top of the shutter button – no finger gymnastics necessary. While the rubber material in front of the camera does help grip significantly, the SX10 IS would have been a bit classier and had a much better to grip/hold if Canon had used the same mottled rubber material found on the XSi/450D’s grip.

The SX10 IS has controls that are similar with the S5 IS. Same shutter release / zoom rocker and the same Command mode dial as the S5 IS and has the same modes as before: Auto, PASM, a single Custom mode, Stitch-Assist, Movie, four scene presets normally found on Canon bridge-cams and the SCN mode. What’s new with the SCN mode is that it gives the user eight additional presets plus an ISO 3200 option. For those of you who like to go Manual, fear not: this baby has an M mode like its predecessor.

Most of the external buttons are placed on the right side of the camera. What I like about the SX10 IS is that it has Canon’s jog-dial…click-wheel. Whatever you want to call it. All the buttons are easily accessible by either the index finger or the thumb. While Canon says its four-way jog wheel is “strategically placed” so that it won’t interfere with the thumb (or the other way around), I found out that while it did not interfere with my thumb, the base of my thumb does the dial – and I have small hands. What more for folks who have large hands?

Unlike the LCD screen of the Sony H50 that I reviewed a couple of weeks back, the bright 2.5″ LCD of the SX10 IS is fully articulated: it can go around in almost any angle, giving the shooter versatility in terms of shooting position. Resolution is also better, but not that much. Compared to the LCD screen of the S5 IS, the LCD screen of the the SX10 IS has higher resolution: 230,000 pixels vs. 207,000 pixels on the S5 IS. Mind you though that the added resolution did not help viewing the LCD under bright sunlight any. No sir.

The Canon SX10 IS has an electronic viewfinder or EVF. Like most EVFs, there’s nothing spectacular really with the SX10′s EVF: images on the EVF is small, images projected is grainy and is not WYSIWYG. Allow me to explain a bit. When I was testing the EVF, I found out that even if my subject fills up a good portion of the EVF screen, it’s was not the case on the resulting image. Testing the same subject again shot from the same distance but this time framed using the LCD, the resulting image is how I framed/composed it on the LCD.

Features and Performance

Arguably, the main feature of the SX10 IS is its massive, 20x optically stabilized lens. Delivering a 35mm film focal length equivalent of 28-560mm, the f/2.8-5.7 lens provides very good performance. Based on what I saw, the lens is not a disappointment as commented in some online reviews. The images produced by the lens is actually pretty good, in my personal opinion better than the Sony H50 that I tested a couple of weeks back. The lens barrel extends by 18mm from its housing when powered up and extends to about 50mm at full extension. As the barrel extends, you’ll notice markings indicating actual and equivalent focal length.

The SX10 IS uses a USM motor to power the zoom lens that offers two speed settings. According to Canon, the slower speed setting is virtually silent but as far as my test went, it was not that silent. In fact, I could hear the motor whirring as the lens zooms in then out. Set it to the fastest speed setting, noise is really noticeable. The closest focusing distance for macro shots is about 10cm in Macro mode and 0cm in Super Macro. The Super Macro is actually quite neat. At 0cm, the subject will remain focused no mater how close you bring the subject to the front of the lens. Be warned though: subjects taken at 0cm using super macro need to be back lit as any other lighting position will produce shadows on the resulting photo. The lens has a small, petal lens hood which is easy to attach and remove. Effectiveness of the lens hood is minimal as its a bit small to properly do its job. However, I like the lens hood on this camera better compared to that of the humongous, two-piece lens hood for the Sony DSC H50.

Powering up quickly, you can take a photo in about one second after you switch the power on. Pretty good. Shutter lag is about 0.4-0.5 seconds which is pretty good for a bridge cam. Shot-to-shot time (shoot, write, refocus then shoot again) comes at a respectable 2.4 or so seconds. Again, pretty good. While continuous shooting rate is about 1.5fps, focus is fixed on the first shot. So, focus moving subjects on succeeding shots would be a problem. Exploring the camera further, I found out that continuous shooting is possible in AF with about 0.7fps with focus established for each shot. However, there would be brief blackouts after each shot and the subsequent shots will be displayed with a bit of a delay. Not to long to be overly concerned about, though. Therefore, panning shots would be difficult to execute.

The SX10 IS has face detect (becoming common on non-DSLR cameras now-a-days) and Flexizone. With Flexizone, the user is allowed  to move the AF frame to the desired area of the screen. There is also a “face select and track feature”. This feature allows the user to designate a face on the frame which the AF frame will then follow. Pretty neat. Under default AF settings, focus acquisition time is about 0.5 seconds which is very good in my opinion for this class of camera. From my observations, then AF time may have performed even better (faster) on 2-3 shooting occasions. Complementing the AF is an AF assist beam that doubles as a red eye reduction and self-timer lamp.

The SX10 has a manual pop-up flash. Manual because you have to flip it up manually. Don’t worry: the camera will tell you when the flash is needed (information will be shown on the LCD screen). I find this feature very annoying as I had to keep reminding myself to look out for information on the LCD screen to see if the flash needs to be popped-up. According to Canon, the flash of the SX10 IS has a range up to 17ft. at wide angle and about 9ft. at full telephoto in Auto ISO mode. Depending on what shooting mode you want or are in, the camera has 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. I found out that the camera had difficulty meeting this distances when I setting the ISO to 200 or higher. If you have an Canon-compatible external flash lying around, better to bring it out when shooting with ISO 200 or higher. Your photos will benefit from it. According to Canon, the recycle time of the built-in flash is 12 seconds but based on my tests, its a bit faster than that: around 9 to 10 seconds. Hey, guys at Canon! You may have downgraded the performance of the built in flash.

For battery life, its 340 shots for fully-charged alkaline batteries and 600 shots for lithium-ion batts. That’s according to Canon. The tests I made using fully-charged alkaline AAs had different results. Testing with four (4) fully charged rechargeable Alkaline batteries produced approximately three hundred fifteen (315) photos where no flash photography was used.  Using a new set of fresh batteries, approximately two-hundred seventy five (275) images were captured using flash photography. Tests were done where focal length remained constant at 50mm (standard lens for a 35mm SLR camera). In tests where zooming in and out was used, it was noticed that the battery life decreased significantly. Zooming constantly in and out while performing full-flash photography may decrease the two-hundred seventy five (275) image life of the battery for flash photography.

Image Quality, Exposure, Color and Processing

While some online reviews said that the quality of images produced by the SXI0 IS is not good, I found them pretty pleasing. Very good in my opinion. Colors are pretty accurate and quite pleasing to the eye. Photos were quite sharp and I think the in-camera sharpening is doing its job quite nicely. Tone, brightness and contrast of the images are well balanced and pleasing to the eye (for both in-door and outdoor shots) for shooting conditions with good, well-balanced lighting. In extreme contrast conditions, the camera tends to overexpose a bit so care must be needed in using light and where to place the subject in high-contrast shooting situations to produce optimal (best) results. For users who are comfortable in full Manual mode, I recommend you try out the camera in Manual mode usin ISO 100 to 200. You’ll be rewarded with pretty good results.

The SX10 IS offers evaluative, center-weighted, and spot metering methods. Evaluative metering is the default setting and did a pretty good job in high-contrast shots. While there were a bit of noticeable loss of highlights on the resulting images when I tested the camera under extreme contrast situations, the evaluative method proved pretty reliable across a wide range of exposure situations and the resulting images came out quite nicely. Another feature in this camera that I found neat was the different color settings. While the default color settings produce pretty accurate results, you can go in MY COLORS menu option to change how the camera will “mix” colors. Settings available are default, vivid, neutral, positive film, B&W, sepia, vivid red, vivid blue, and vivid green options. I especially liked the positive film setting. One other setting that I found quite neat is the Color Accent setting. With this setting on, you can designate a color in the image about to be captured that will remain, while the rest of the image is in b&w. Oh yeah, before I forget. White balance. If you decide to go the Auto white balance way, you won’t regret it as it proved to be accurate across a range of lighting conditions. However, images taken under incandescent lighting was a but warm but generally pleasing.

Conclusion

In my opinion, Canon came roaring back in the ultrazoom market with this baby. Sure, Canon has lagged for a few years in this market but with the introduction of the SX10 IS, I won’t be surprised if Canon claws its way steadily to get a top spot on the market. Canon has a winner here. Very good shutter and AF performance, near-accurate image quality, produces good sharp images, solid build, easy to use and a nice 20x lens that stretches from 28mm to 560mm. If you want a DSLR-like camera with very good performance or would want a backup camera for your DSLR but not another DSLR, then I think you should take a look at this baby.

It would be worth it.

Sample Photos