Canon Powershot SX1 IS review
The Canon PowerShot SX1 IS
The Powershot SX1 takes fantastic photographs and video recordings, although its mass of buttons and temperamental nature can sometimes make getting there a chore.
Canon’s Powershot range has a very logical place in the company’s product hierarchy. It sits below the EOS range, which offers DSLRs (digital single-lens reflex) for high-end and professional use. It sits above the IXUS digital compact range, however, which is designed to be a ‘point-and-click’ camera for everyday and personal use.
The Powershot is as a result designed to be a bridge camera, offering some of a DSLR’s functionality and benefits without being too technical for an untrained photographer to use.
To that end the SX1 is a moderate but not overwhelming success. It certainly looks like a DSLR and feels like one too, while its built-in zoom lens means the purchaser does not have to stress over what types they need to buy and what works best in certain light.
The ‘Auto’ setting also allows for point and click photographs to be taken, meaning it is just as easy as a compact to use at its most basic level. Of course it must be said that even the EOS range has an ‘Auto’ setting and is just as easy to use, so how this Powershot makes that process any more accessible is difficult to see.
What usually throws new arrivals to the DSLR market is the sheer breadth of options available to them on their camera. There are a number of pre-set settings for different light conditions and photograph types while users not quite satisfied can create their own manual settings too. The SX1 has all of this and at times it seemed like more, which only leads to confusion and frustrated manual-consulting.
The 10 megapixels are used well, as is the impressive 20X optical zoom – although getting focus on images at full zoom was hit and miss. Other minor details also made the camera a bit less usable – for example the need to manually pull the flash up when most other DSLRs can do it automatically.
It was also surprising to see a camera using regular AA batteries again, something that some may welcome and others may curse.
What makes the SX1 so unique and arguably attractive, however, is its HD video recorder. Most digital cameras have some capacity to film movies, although usually at poor quality. DSLRs tend not to at all – they are pure photograph machines. This Powershot manages to buck both trends and offers good quality video in a DSLR casing.
The video was actually more impressive than the photographs it produced – as nice as they were. Indeed sometimes felt as though the SX1 was designed to be a camcorder with photography functionality attached.
Perhaps that is where Canon went wrong with the Powershot SX1 IS.
It is certainly an attractive device for video capturing, in fact it is superb. However if a customer bought this looking for a simple introduction to the world of the DSLR they may very well be put off.
The truth is if someone wants a simple and functional DSLR, they would probably find it elsewhere and at less cost – even within the rest of the Powershot range.
An edited version of this review appeared in Business & Finance magazine on the 29th January 2009.
