Canon PowerShot SX200IS 12 MP Digital Camera

First off, let me start by saying that I am a Canon fan-boy. I love their product lines in the point and shoot category. I have owned several Canon Powershots and this is my newest acquisition.

Basics:
Whats in the Box:
Camera
Hand Strap
Battery
Charger
USB Cable
Analog Video Cable
Documentation
Canon Software version 46

Whats NOT in the Box and Should be:
Mini-HDMI to HDMI Cable
Sample Memory Card

ONLY GRIPE:
The NOT portion above automatically pulls this review down to a 4 star. Why? Because if you are going to put a mini-hdmi port on your camera…you should include the cable. Even CREATIVE includes a mini-hdmi to hdmi cable with their Vado Video Cam. Come on CANON! And no memory card to start playing out of the box..whats up with that? $349 for this camera would surely be able to give Canon enough to throw in a memory card..and cable. Enough Gripes…now on to the good stuff.

PROS:
I love the look of this camera. Take a look at the images I have attached and ascertain for yourself. Canon has refined the lines on their power-shots so much so that they look like professional cameras.

From the time you press the power button to the time you take your first shot is about 1 second…which to me is pretty fast. Turning the camera off takes an extra second or so because it has to put the flash back down and bring the lens in.

The zoom (12x optical zoom) is amazingly fast when compared to other cameras (Lumix TZ5) that have a lens that is about this size. When the optical zoom runs out, it does get a bit slow on the digital zoom…but that is to be expected on all cameras. I timed about 1.6 seconds from wide-angle to telephoto at full speed. It moves faster as you put more pressure on the switch. The range is 28-336mm. NOTE: One of the cons here is that this amazing zoom can not be used for Video shooting.

A fully charged battery should give you about 280-300 shots depending on conditions, flash usage, light compensation, etc.

The face self-timer option lets you be in a photo, without having to sprint across the room while the self-timer counts down. The camera will simply wait until any other face is detected, and it will take 3 shots in 2 seconds.

The custom self-timer option lets you select both the time you need and how many pictures you want to take. Awesome feature.

The Optical Image Stabilization is awesome and works really well.

The LCD (which is an issue on most cameras for bright outdoors) is amazingly bright and high quality. It is easy to see what you are shooting indoors under heavy lighting and outdoors.

One of the few cameras in its class that allows you to use it in FULL Manual mode…although it does not save files in RAW format.

HD video at 1280 x 720 (720p) at 30 frames/second, with mono sound in h.264 format…which means more video due to higher compression.

Amazing automatic red-eye removal….tested on my daughter with eyes that will put any cameras red-eye feature to shame. We finally dont have to do any post editing on her eyes. YEAH!!!

I will be getting in to photo related details once I have had more time to experiment with the different shooting environments. So far I can see that this camera shines in bright light but seems to have some noise that causes detail loss over iso 200 in low light. Keep checking on this review for updates.

Cons:
Again, no included memory.
No HDMI cable.
Battery Life could be better (not a deal breaker).
Flash takes a bit of time to charge after firing.
Optical zoom not usable in video mode (my lumix tz5 allows it)
Low light performance is lack luster..there is some detail loss.

As I mentioned above..this review is a work in progress and I will be updating it regularly as my experiences with this camera increase. Please ask any and all questions via the commenting system here and I will answer them to the best of my abilities.. Thanks and I hope this review is informative.

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