Canon SX240 HS / SX260 HS reexamine -
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Intro
The Canon PowerShot SX240 HS and SX260 HS are Canon's 2012 scoop A-one-whizz replacements for the PowerShot SX230 HS. The headline lineament with pocket superintendent-zooms is obviously the optic range and Canon has protracted the orbit of the PowerShot SX240 HS and SX260 Hassium to 20x with a new lense that's equivalent to 25-500mm. That puts them on a equal footing with Panasonic's market major Lumix ZS20 / TZ30 and Sony's HX20V / HX30V.
Canon has resisted the opportunity to increase the resolution and has stuck with a 12.1 Megapixel posterior-light CMOS detector, but the paradigm processor has been upgraded to the Digic 5. The best quality film mode remains 1080p24, and the 3 edge in LCD screen has the same diagonal size, merely its look ratio has changed from 16:9 to 4:3, and the image stabilisation has been updated to Canon's new Smart as a whip IS system.
Thus far the SX240 HS and SX260 HS are identical, so what's the difference between the two models? It boils drink down to a single feature: the SX260 Atomic number 108 has a collective-in GPS receiver whereas the SX240 Hassium does non. In regions which offer both models, this gives you the choice whether to hope GPS or not, but in other regions only uncomparable model may be available. For illustration in North The States, lonesome the GPS-equipped SX260 HS is on cut-rate sale. Either way, in all other respect the SX240 HS and SX260 HS are identical, so all tests and results are applicable to some models. I got hold of the SX240 HS for review, so from this point on I'll refer to some models as the SX240 HS unless I'm explicitly talking close to the GPS functions of the SX260 HS.
Having pretty much fancied so dominated the pocket tiptop-surg market, Panasonic's Latest Lumix models look set to continue the trend, but could the PowerShot SX240 Hs personify the first model from Canon to really challenge Panasonic's lead? To find out I've compared the PowerShot SX240 HS with both the 20x 14 Megapixel Lumix ZS20 / TZ30 and the slightly more low-priced 16x 12 Megapixel Lumix ZS15 / TZ25.
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Canon PowerShot SX240 Hs Design and controls
The PowerShot SX240 HS is almost the exact same dimensions as the Powershot SX230 HS it replaces. At 254g including card and battery it's a bit heavier, no dubiety imputable the longer lens, but a little extra weight is a small price to devote for the extra reach and it's a credit to the Canon designers that the SX240 Atomic number 108 is Eastern Samoa compact arsenic its predecessor.
Compared with the Lumix ZS20 / TZ30 the SX240 HS is a little bigger completely round as considerably as a little heavier; its also a little curvier than the squareish Lumix models. Both rivals are along the large side of the compact spectrum but will fit well in a jacket crown air hole.
The SX240 HS's curves are more sculptured than those of its predecessor which had a kind of raised belt around its perimeter. IT's an elegant design which is also practical: it's comforted to conceal the script thanks to a vertical thumb grip happening the front panel. The top panel has a dish-shaped profile which also helps with manipulation and the pill shaped on/off push sits just to the right of the large shutter release with its zoom collar surround.
The rear controls are identical to those on the PowerShot SX230 Hassium, with a mode dial, four-way controller, and buttons for direct movie recording, playback, display overlays and the menu system. The plump for panel lacks the SX230 HS's curvy contours and is a plainer, simpler design.
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The SX240 HS has a 3 inch 461 thousand pixel screen which differs in single very important respect from its predecessor. The proportions of this screen are 4:3 not 16:9. While many manufacturers can't seem to make up their minds roughly riddle proportions on compact cameras that can shoot 4:3 still as well American Samoa 16:9 HD video, it seems that, at least as far as the SX240 HS is concerned, Canon has decided to bring home the bacon a silver screen unexceeded suited to shooting stills, instead than picture – a decision I'm personally precise pleased about as volition be anyone who intends to purpose the SX240 HS principally as a stills camera. The other factor in in that English hawthorn atomic number 4 that the screens on both the Lumix ZS20 / TZ30 and the Sony Cyber-colourful HX20V / 30V are 4:3, though the former is a touch-block out and the latter a high resolution panel with 921k pixels. The 4:3 blind proportions mean that the look-alike fills the full screen area with info overlayed connected top. Of course, if you switch to movie manner the image is letterboxed with opprobrious bars top and tooshie.
The riddle itself is clear, bright and punchy with no hint of pixellation at normal viewing distances. It has good visibility crosswise a comprehensive range of viewing angles horizontally and vertically, so you can determine pretty healthy even with the camera held at implements of war length above your head. Corresponding all screens, it's a task to use in bright sunlight and totally you can do is try and create a bit of shade with your hand.
The flash happening the SX240 Element 108 is a kill-up unit of measurement similar to those happening in the beginning versions. Mercifully though, Canon has finally programmed the mechanism to function Thomas More sensibly and IT no longer pops up when you turn the camera on regardless of the flash mode. It now behaves exactly as you'd expect – mechanically raising itself when compulsory and retracting when no thirster needed.
In PASM modes the swank has 'Auto,' forced on, forced off and slow synchro modes, and has a quoted maximum distance of 3.5 metres. Cagy tacky automatically adjusts power depending on the propinquity and brightness of the subject and recycles in around two to four seconds, and you rear also manually set flash exposure compensation up to plus operating theater minus 2 stops in 1/3 of a stop increments. You can also attach the HF-DC2 accessory swank which is triggered by the built-in unit and extends the range to around nine metres.
A flexible plastic cross along the right side of the body protects the USB 2.0 and mini HDMI ports, while the door for the combined battery and card compartment is on the bottom right. IT's hinged just about the hit-middle tripod bush, a slenderly unusual design which prevents changing card or battery while tripod affixed. The SX240 HS takes a Canon NB-6L battery which provides enough power for 230 shots – a slight improvement happening the 210 of its predecessor but non quite in the same conference as the Lumix SZ20/TZ30 with 260 shots per appoint. It's compatible with SD, SDHC and SDXC cards.
Canon PowerShot SX240 lens and stabilization
The SX240 HS has a new 4.5-90mm 20x optically stabilised telephoto lens which has a 35mm equivalent range of 25-500mm. The early 2 generations of PowerShot SX air hole super-zooms have shared the unvaried 14x optics, so it's nobelium storm to see Canyon introduce a inexperienced lens putting it along a equality with competing models similar the Lumix ZS20 / TZ30 and the Sony Cyber-shot HX20V / HX30V.
The SX240 HS's zoom has been lengthened at both ends of the range; the sweeping Angle is broadened from 28 to 25mm and at the long end it now reaches a 500mm maximum telephotograph compared to 24-480mm on the Lumix ZS20 / TZ30; tone the Sony HX20V / HX30V shares the same 25-500mm range Eastern Samoa the Canon. Beyond their equivalent ranges, there are a couple of other differences in their optical specifications valuable noting. The maximum aperture of the SX240 HS is f3.5-6.8 fashioning it fractionally darker than both the Lumix ZS20 / TZ30 at f3.3-6.4 and the HX20V / HX30V at f3.2-5.8.
| Canyon PowerShot SX240 HS coverage wide | Canyon PowerShot SX240 Hassium reporting tele | |
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| 4.5-90mm at 4.5mm (25mm equivalent) | 4.5-90mm at 90mm (500mm equivalent) |
Information technology's an extraordinary rapid growth range which allows you to go from extremely all-inclusive angle to protracted telephoto in a matter of a some seconds victimization the cardinal-speed zoom rocker. On that point's very miniature in terms of subject matter that you won't live able to tackle, bar extremely distant small subjects. About the simply drawback, and it's a small Price to pay, is the relatively modest 5cm nearest focusing distance.
Clearly happening a camera with a 500mm telephoto, image stabilisation is an in-chief lineament. The SX240HS has Canon's Intelligent IS optical image stabilisation which analyses the scene and sets the congruous stabiliser mode. There are ternion settings in the menu – continuous, shoot only and inactive. The television camera automatically chooses one of 7 stabiliser modes including the flat and vertical panning modes that you previously had to select manually. It also has a mode especially for macro shot and can additionally tell when the camera is on a tripod and turns stabilisation off.
I tested the PowerShot SX240 HS's image stabilisation by zooming the genus Lens to IT's full 500mm telephotograph tramp and taking a sequence of shots in Shutter priority mode at progressively slower shutter speeds both with stabilisation off and in continuous mood. As you can see from the 100 percent crops below, the PowerShot SX240 HS is subject of eliminating camera shake down to 1/30th with IS on, that's four stops slower than conventional wisdom suggests.
| Canyon PowerShot SX240 HS Intelligent IS Bump off/On | ||||
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| 100% crop, 4.5-90mm at 90mm, 100 ISO 1/30th, IS off. | 100% crop, 4.5-90mm at 90mm, 100 ISO 1/30th, IS on. | |||
Canon PowerShot SX240 Element 108 shooting modes
The SX240 HS has PASM exposure modes selectable from the mode dial also as the full complement of Canon's auto vulnerability modes. SmartAuto uses Scene detection to aright determine the exposure in a wide range of shooting conditions past analysing both the subject and lighting conditions. The Digic 5 central processor expands on the number of scenes which could be recognised by the earlier Digic 4 in the SX230 HS and can realise sleeping and grin babies and running children in addition to other subjects under a set out of lighting conditions from sunsets to night prison term. The Easy position on the mode dial sets Sassy auto mode and disables all the buttons bar ostentation (sour or auto) and there's likewise a discrete mode that mutes all sounds and disables the trice and AF illuminator.
In between the manual and item-and-shoot down motorcar modes, the PowerShot SX240 HS has an excellent range of mountains of playfulness and creative shot to choose from. These include Notional filters for personal effects much arsenic Fisheye, Miniature, Toy tv camera, Soft Focus, Monochrome, Super vivid, Poster, Colour accent and Colour Trade. And then there's a selection of scene modes including the Handheld NightScene modal value which wads three exposures (few than the equivalent sport on Sony and Panasonic models) to produce a lower-noise complex. If you desire to romp around with photo and colourise settings without acquiring too technical, the Live control position provides sliders for exposure compensation (Dark/Light), saturation (Neutral/Vivid) and white balance (Cool/Warm).
At length there's Movie Digest way which is a feature unique to Canyon compacts. This shoots a short 2-4 second clip in front all still shot, then stitches them whol in concert. IT's a cracking way to pile up a movie of a unscheduled consequence look-alike a wedding Oregon birthday and takes almost no effort. The exclusively drawback is that the television camera is effectively recording and buffering video the overall time it's switched on in this style, so the battery living is shortened.
The SX240 Atomic number 108 has the Smart Shutter sport which uses Front find to take shots automatically. It has three options – Smiling, Blink of an eye self-timer and Face self-timer, each of which can be configured to look at between one and ten shots. The SX240 HS lacks any kind of 3D mode and spell in that location is a stitch assist selection that helps you shoot overlapping frames there's no in-camera panorama feature like on the Lumix ZS20 / TZ30 and the Sony HX20V / HX30V; Canyon is looking a little dated in that regard when its rivals are capturing and stitching panoramas with a single sweep of the camera.
Canon PowerShot SX240 Element 108 picture modes
The SX240 Atomic number 108 has the same best quality 1080p24 movie quality As the SX230 Atomic number 108. Movies are encoded exploitation the H.264 codec and saved in a QuickTime wrapper American Samoa .mov files. Thither's also an iFrame option that produces files in Apple's easily edited iFrame format also as a Super slow motion mode that shoots at 120 fps VGA and 240 FPS QVGA for playback at one fourth and unrivaled eighth genuine time severally.
Other options include 720p, VGA and QVGA, wholly at 30fps. The maximum recording time for HD clips is 4GB or a second short of half an hour, whichever comes first-year. At the 1080p24 resolution the data rate is around 38 Megabits per second which equates to about 15 minutes of footage on a 4GB card, and Canon recommends SD speed class 6 OR higher cards.
The SX230 Element 108 has a dedicated motion picture mode clitoris so you can record video thoughtless of the position of the modal value dial. Much stills modes, including every of the Originative filter and many scene modes, can also make up used for movie shooting. In Illumination mode the action is sped upwards and you tail end choose one of iii playback speeds. In that respect's also a movie position connected the modal value dial which switches the screen to 16:9 view and sets the shooting mood to standard. Movie exposure is set automatically simply you can lock it prior to shot and adjust by upwardly to deuce Michigan either means. The SX240 HS has made-up in stereo mics and an electronic wind filter.
There is one new aspect to pic recording and that's the new Powered IS image stabilization which replaces Dynamic IS on the PowerShot SX230 IS. Information technology's hard to say just how much of a difference this makes as Powered IS is designed to address video wobbles at provident central lengths and the SX240 Hs tin zoom much further than the SX230 Atomic number 108. One thing's for dependable and that is hand-held long shots are much steadier with Powered IS activated than without it.
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The SX240 HS copes rather well in these demanding into the light conditions. The zoom along motor is quite a audible in the faster of the 2 positions (see the tripod mounted shot for the slower quieter zoom in action). Although it can't iron out all the wobbles Supercharged IS does a fair job of keeping things reasonably unshakable at 500mm.
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The zoom motor is such quieter (though non inexplicit) at the slower of the two speeds, though it stool be difficult to judge the position on the rocker. The autofocus wanders a little during the zoom, but is quick to recover. More worrying is the curliness that occurs at full zoom overstatement, contempt stabilisation being off off for this tripod-mounted shot.
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Indoors in the low light the continuous AF works well to swimmingly conversion from near to middle distance subjects, but the exposure ISN't specially antiphonal.
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The SX240 HS can also tear video using some Creative Effects filters. Here's Miniature mode with playback at 10x producing a sise second clip from a arcminute's Worth of shooting. Else options are 5x and 20x. Preeminence like separate recent Canon compacts, the SX240 HS will only record VGA video if the photo aspect ratio is set to the default 4:3. In fiat to unlock an HD option for filming with Creative Effects, you'll need to first set the photo aspect ratio to 16:9, at which point video recording will be captured at 720p.
Canyon PowerShot SX240 HS
handling
The SX240 HS takes a fraction subordinate two seconds to start high which is jolly average and some the same as the Lumix ZS20 / TZ30. The zoom rocker has a ii speed motor regardless of shooting mode: the action is reasonably quiet in the slower of the two speeds but at the faster hurry becomes intelligibly clunky connected movie footage. It's also quite tricky to position the rocker accurately for the required zoom travel rapidly – it's only too easy to cross the line and accidentally slip into bolted mode when shooting movies.
The card organization is pretty easy to pilot, though the shooting settings card is long and looking things like image stabilisation, i-Contrast and AF settings bottom make up boring. Just nigh of the daily functions are happening the Func bill of fare which, with its two-bed overlay, provides pretty much instant access.
The AF is quick and accurate some in Face detect mode and the fall back area AF, though in Smart Auto mode it as well easily interprets camera move for field movement and switches to AF tracking. Like the Lumix ZS20 / TZ30 the SX240 HS provides Face ID allowing the adjustment of up to 12 people. For those World Health Organization like to be in complete assure there's also a manual focus option, but the SX240 Element 108 lacks anything wish the Lumix ZS20 / TZ30's custom modes.
The SX240 HS has a full resolution continuous shooting mode which operates at 2.2 frames per second with focus fixed from the first frame, though Canon has now reduced the previously claimed speed to match the actual speed of this have. Just the big news is the massive improvement in Aloha State Speed Straight modal value which can shoot up a burst of 10 frames at 10.3fps also at full resolution. Canon compacts aren't notable for impressive unbroken shooting carrying into action – the top the earlier SX230 Atomic number 108 could manage was 6.5fps at 3M resolution. Though the SX240 HS lacks the ZS20 / TZ30's reduced resolution burst formats it can now match (in fact slightly beat) IT for full resolution continuous fusillade shooting and that's a significant and welcome improvement.
A blue VW van in the pelting Crataegus laevigata deficiency the glamour of Gordon's Shotover Jet examples, but nonetheless gives a good demonstration of the PowerShot SX240 Element 108's high speed straight shot capablity.
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The PowerShot SX240 Hassium is equipped with a 12.1 Megapixel sensor measuring 1 / 2.33 inches, this is the same specification as the sensor in its predecessor, the SX230 HS, but the processor has been updated to the newer Digic 5. The sensitivity range is 100-3200 ISO and the shutter speed ranges from 15 seconds to 1/3200. Images are preserved as JPEGs at peerless of two compaction setting. Best upper-class JPEG files are on the average 3-5MB in size.
To run into how the calibre of the PowerShot SX240 HS measures-risen in practice, take a view my Canon SX240 quality and Canon SX240 noise results pages, browse my Canyon SX240 sample images, or skip to the chase and head straight for my verdict.
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Canon SX240 HS / SX260 HS review
Source: https://www.cameralabs.com/canon_powershot_sx240_hs_sx260_hs/
