Canon PowerShot SX10 IS

I tried out way too many cameras before I finally found this one, and it is definitely The One. The picture quality is amazing, and crisp, the colors are very vivid. I love the display screen that I can… turn around to keep closed when my camera is in my bag to avoid getting scratches on it, and the way the screen flips over has been really useful in taking pictures of yourself grouped up with friends when no one else is there to do so, instead of just guessing if your all in the frame you can actually see it. The self timer and face self timer function lets you take up to 10 pictures and instantly recognizes your face and has let me take incredible pictures on top of mountains and in remote areas on my travels in Turkey and Europe. You can just set up the camera and when you get into range look straight at it and it begins taking pictures clicking away 10 times,or less depending on your setting. You can keep the volume up so you can hear when its taking a picture or keep it low if you are indoors and don't want the sound to be heard. This is an incredibly useful function. The panoramic assist function and the zoom browser stitch software have let me put together incredibly stunning views of entire cities on my journey that I have been able to take from high locations by hand without they use of a tripod. The zoom on this thing is incredible. If you are thinking, do I really need 20x zoom? I was thinking the same thing, but traveling around when I am inside a building with huge domes and high ceilings the zoom lets me stand in one place and get close up to all the incredible details and capture them perfectly, the zoom is incredible, and allows you to shoot wide shots or get very close up to the tiny details you wouldn't even be able to see otherwise. I was able to take pictures of the moon with the super zoom and without a tripod, and of sunrises and scenes as well as indoor shots of details inside of high domes and all have come out stunning with little effort from me. The video function on this camera is also very good and has allowed me to get some great videos of interiors of buildings and outdoors too. The wide angle lens is incredible for capturing ALOT of detail a big scene or the large facade of a building. This camera has great features and great picture quality and is incredibly easy to use, even for the beginner and has enough flexibility that you can work with the manual controls if you want to be more creative. criticisms: The lowlight pictures could be better, they do tend to get grainy in extreme lowlight so you have to watch the iso, I guess this is what the manual settings are for so if you are good with that sort of thing you can probably change it around to get much better results. I haven't been able to master the settings yet but I havent had to I have been getting great pics on the go throughout. My other criticism would be that sometimes you have to watch what batteries you buy because even if your batteries are fully charged they wont be recognized by the camera. I had some trouble because the camera would not recognize my rechargeable energizer batteries which I bought with a charger for my travels so the whole thing went to waste and I had to keep buying duracell batteries wherever I went. It does recognize duracell and a few other types though, you can google it to see the best type. As long as you have the right kind of battery on had it lasts for awhile without giving you trouble but just beware of investing too much in a battery and charger that wont work for this camera. neither of these are fatal flaws though. This camera fits great in my hands and the pictures are pure magic. Take a look at the ones I uploaded and judge for yourself. I would highly recommend this camera and completely love it, I've finally found what I've been looking for.

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My S1IS went back to the factory for a faulty image sensor on a recall a couple of years ago. A few months later, the lens retraction mechanism got stuck. Despire thousands of complaints about this problem,… Canon never recalled the camera. After hours of trying to fix it myself (or pay 90% of the value of the camera for a repair?), I trashed it. Hesitated to try Canon again, but bought the SX10IS anyway. It was a mistake. Image quality in Auto mode pales compared to the S1IS. Low light? Forget it. Without a flash, you get unacceptable grain in even decent light levels. I wanna cry when I look at my old S1 images compared to the 10. The S1 was an incredible camera. You would never know it was only 3.2MP by looking at images it produced. The SX10IS is bulky and heavy for the feature set. The LCD is bigger, which is nice, but that's not a good tradeoff for the weight. The USB port sits behind a plastic door that does not open all the way, making it awkward to connect a cable. Menu settings are inconveniently organized, making it difficult and time-consuming to try to adjust settings to compensate for the inadequate Auto mode. It's beyond me why Canon still has not provided a lens cap with a string to keep the thing attached when you're shooting. Worse, the clip on the cap is poorly designed - it doesn't stay on. I have all sorts of Canon products in my home and office - scanners, printers, old SLR's (my 1984 A-1 is still my favorite camera - a work horse). I have always recommended Canon products. That's why I gave Canon the benefit of the doubt and replaced the S1 with the 10. Big mistake. When a $400 digital camera won't take a really good, quick snapshot on Auto under good light conditions, the camera design is poor. I gave this camera more than one star because it's got some redeeming qualities, including a nice face-focus, but it's not worth half the price I paid. Too bad. It has dimmed my opinion of Canon dramatically. In closing, I'll add that I'm not a pro, but I'm more than a novice. I read the manual cover to cover to find settings that helped the image quality of my photos. The results still don't come close to my old S1. I can't recommend this camera. Wish I had time to go research a good replacement...

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Ok,let me first say I am a fan of Canon products and purchased this one for the great reviews. This camera is awful! I was deciding between a DSLR and a 'point and shoot' and opted to go with the point… and shoot. Even though the DSLR would have been nice...all I really need the camera for is taking pictures of my daughter. The fatal flaw of this camera is that it cannot take an action shot to save its life. Try telling a two year old to stay still every time you want to take a picture! All of my pictures come out blurry...in a series of about 20 pictures maybe 1 might be actually usable. I have tried setting the dial to the "action/sports" setting and it is no better than any of the other settings. I have also tried the custom settings to get it to work...but that kind of defeats the purpose of the point and shoot...not to mention it still doesn't work. My $100 little pocket camera takes better 'real' pictures than this. The camera is nice for taking pictures of still shots...but that's it. Not a good value for the money. Either upgrade to the DSLR or downgrade to a good point and shoot.

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