Canon PowerShot SX210IS Digital Camera - From Novices to Pros, this Digital Camera Delivers

Author's Rating:

Pros: great documentation, ease of use, fantastic image & video quality, good size

Cons: location of flash, no viewfinder, screen can easily be damaged

The Bottom Line: 
This is the first digital camera I truly am happy with in terms of image quality and functionality. Great camera at an affordable price.

Author's Review
I am pretty hard on cameras, especially my digital ones.  My most recent, also a Canon, actually lasted pretty long, nearly five years. I was getting ready to think about replacing it when I broke the screen.  That was all the incentive I needed to invest in a new camera. I was extremely pleased with the quality from my Canon digital and had a good experience with the brand, whether film or digital over the years, so I decided to stick with them.  The end result after research and feedback was the Canon PowerShot SX210IS.

After using the camera for a while, there are a couple of things that I don't like. I'll get them out of the way first since there's much more that I do like.  I don't like the location of the flash.  It pops up when the shutter button is depressed and the way I am used to holding the camera, I usually end up with my finger over the flash. This means it doesn't pop up and it doesn't flash.  I'm slowly learning to adjust how I hold the camera, but it's something that's annoying when I grab the camera to take a quick picture and realize the flash didn't engage. The plus to this is when I don't want to use the flash, all I have to do is put my finger over it or just push it back down rather than having to go through the menus on the screen.  I also don't like the fact that there isn't a viewfinder at all.  This means if (when?) I break the screen, the camera is essentially shot.

That said, there's an awful lot to like about the Canon PowerShot SX210IS.  The resolution is up to 14.1 MP with a 28mm wide-angle lens which takes rich images loaded with color.  I wish I had the ability to upload pictures to the review, but I've been totally impressed with the quality of the images this camera takes.  Going out during fall foliage, the camera records the vivid blue of the skies against the backdrop of the leaves and grasps the nuances of the differing colors of the leaves.  I compare this to the camera in my Droid X, and there's really no comparison at all.  The quality and level of detail of this simply blows any camera phone away.

I wanted a zoom lens as well and the 14x optical zoom with image stabilizer is also better than any I've had in a digital camera before this one.  Using it can sometimes be a bit tricky as it's a little button on the top of the camera that needs to be tapped to the left or right to zoom in and out.  The quality, however, is fantastic.  I've zoomed in to images far away and gotten incredible quality from the camera.  It locks onto faces and focuses on them, indicating this on the screen in such a way it's easy to reposition the shot if necessary before taking it.  The high-resolution LCD screen itself is fairly large, measuring three inches diagonally making it easy to use to preview photos as well as aiding in composing them.  Using menu functions is also easy, and I find I don't have to grab my reading glasses to make adjustments to photos using the menus.

Video quality with the camera is also good, and after using it, I'd never worry about carting around an extra video camera with me.  It records HD 720p video with stereo sound.  There's an HDMI connector on the camera so videos can be played right back to an HDTV with no issues.

Shooting pictures or video on the AUTO function makes it easy for the novice to capture great pictures and video.  There's an auto-correction system that compensates for the lighting and background. I've watched the screen as I depress the shutter button center on a face and adjust various aspects of the image and bring them into focus as well as adjust the lighting.  Don't want all of that? The MODE DIAL allows the user to adjust the picture yourself.  There are many settings such as for the beach and for foliage, but for most users the AUTO function will work fine - I know it did for me.  Still, it can be fun to experiment when you have the time to try the various settings and see the results.  I am looking forward to seeing haw the camera does with fireworks as there is a special setting for that. This will allow me to try various solutions for the fireworks behind that castle in Orlando that I love so much.

The camera also allows for various effects on the shot, bringing it up to a level that I haven't experienced before.  There are few other features that seem a little odd, such as a wink self-timer that allows the camera to set a timer based on seeing a wink from the person it puts the green frame on.  The self-timer itself seems to work pretty well and I liked the ability to set it so it gives two seconds after a new face appears in the composed shot before it takes the picture.  This can be an issue when dealing with young children who tend to move around a lot, but it allowed me to get in a couple  of pictures with my kids.

Shutter speed is decent.  I'd say I can take a picture every 2 seconds in AUTO mode.  There's a continuous mode that cuts the number considerably, but I haven't had a reason to use it.

Battery life has been fine for me so far. The Canon PowerShot SX210IS came packaged with a battery and wall charger.  The initial charge took about 3 hours before I could use it and Canon states the battery will last through about 260 photos or 6 hours of video.  I have yet to run it down, but for anyone who doesn't think that would be enough you can invest in a second battery.

I purchased a 4GB memory card to go along with this, which will hold a little over 1,000 photos or up to 20 minutes of video. That should be plenty, although I might have some of my smaller cards I used in my previous camera along as backup on an extended trip. A 16GB card will allow for over 4,000 images or about 84 minutes of video.

Other than the location of the flash, the camera is comfortable to hold.  It's lightweight and fairly thin, although when the lens is extended it will stick out quite a bit.  I wouldn't recommend putting it in pants pockets as this is how the screen on my last Canon camera was ruined, although it's certainly small enough to do that.  I'm still hunting for a cushioned sleeve for this as with the larger screen the camera itself is a bit larger than many other digital cameras on the market.  The dimensions are 4.2 inches across by 1.3 inches front to back and 2.3 inches high.  The camera comes in three colors, black, gold or purple.  I opted for the purple as it made it stand out.

Transferring pictures to a computer is easy. The camera can be hooked up directly to the computer and downloaded using the software on the enclosed CD.  My computer has a slot for memory cards, so I usually just remove the memory card and transfer it that way.  Either way, I can manage the photos on the camera itself or on the computer.

The documentation Canon includes with the camera is wonderful, especially after dealing with no documentation on my new phone.  It was easy to get started with the camera and get walked through getting into AUTO mode for taking pictures and video, then working into the various nuances and features outside of that comfort zone.  It was easy to learn how to adjust features on the camera such as the preview time for the images as well as other settings.  I felt like I had back the functionality of my Pentax K1000 that I used for so many years before I dropped it (noticing a trend here?) as I read through the documentation and saw all this little camera would do.

At just under $300, I feel I got a good deal on the Canon PowerShot SX210IS.  The camera is a noticeable improvement on the Canon I owned for five years and was happy with, so it is a definite upgrade.  It incorporates many features I had on my film 35mm camera for years while also being idiot-proof to a degree and allowing for point-and-shoot pictures.  The quality of the images can't be beat, and that's the bottom line.


© 2010 Patti Aliventi