Canon SX 200 IS

I have been a big fan of of SLR cameras, but when I was shifting from my film SLR to a DSLR, I thought why not just buy myself a portable point and shoot, and I did. Over the years I have missed the versatility and size of a large sensor that the DSLR gives, but am very happy with the portability of point and shoot cameras. While looking for a new camera, I had a chance of reviewing the Canon SX200 IS.

With a 12.1 megapixel sensor, 12x optical zoom and 28 mm equivalent wide-angle lens, it is one of the best cameras in its segment. A popup flash that is good for 3.2 metres, a full expandable zoom lens, all the usual controls including a manual mode, shutter priority, aperture priority, a large 3.0 inch LCD screen—all make it the envy of all your friends, who’ll want to hold it and play with it. Canon should have included a viewfinder in it. However, keeping in mind that most point-and-shoot users utilise the screen as a viewfinder, this is something that I will not hold against them.

I loved the lens range of 28 to 336 mm equivalent, and the ISO sensitivity of up to 16,000. The DIGIC 4 processor from Canon lets it easily do face detection and intelligent contrast correction. HDMI connectivity is a great option, and with video shooting mode of 720p, this is a great camera to buy.

Available in black, blue and red colours.

http://tinyurl.com/open-sx200

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The above review appeared in the Open Magazine, Issue Dated 4th July 2009