I bought the new Canon PowerShot SX20 IS, which is an update of the Canon SX10 IS with a few improvements and important additions. We all know that digital cameras are getting more capable and less expensive virtually every day. The SX20 IS belongs to the most “fun-to-use” camera types, which is loosely-called “mega-zoom” cameras. Meaning the cameras that have 10x optical zoom or higher.

They are fun to use in part because they are very versatile. Before digital mega-zoom digital cameras were available, you had to buy and, carry around a bunch of lenses and a camera body to be able to get to 10x combined magnification (several lenses were required and obviously the process of the lens change is much more time-consuming than simply zooming in as the mega-zoom digicam allows).

With a mega-zoom camera you get 15x optical zoom (or higher) for less than $500 and frequently even for less than $300. And it is so compact, you can place one in a compact camera bag. So you save time, money and energy.

Having over 10x optical zoom at your disposal practical and fun at the same time. You can zoom in to magnify far-away objects while staying far from them, which, again, saves you time and energy. And sometimes it is not practical (or possible) to get close enough to the item you are shooting to get a large enough shot using a regular camera. It may even be is just too dangerous. A mega-zoom camera to the rescue.

But not all cameras of the mega-zoom category are equal in the way they fight image blurriness introduced by the vibration of the hands holding the camera. Some cameras have no image stabilization at all, resulting in blurry images at high magnification levels and/or in dim light. Some cameras rely on increased sensitivity setting (ISO) to increase the shutter speed thereby reducing blur caused by the shake when the camera is handheld, but sometimes at an expense of increased noise and/or decreased detail level, neither of which is good.

The best mega-zoom cameras have optical stabilization (either built into their zoom lenses or into the camera body). These cameras move an optical element within the lens (or shift the imaging sensor itself) to reduce or virtually eliminate blur caused by shooting handheld at high zoom level or in dim light.

The subject of this review (Canon PowerShot SX20 IS) is on of these cameras and is a successor to the well-respected Canon S10 IS, which itself was a direct descendant of the Canon S5 IS. All of these had mega-zoom lenses and optical image stabilization. Canon has been producing optical image stabilization in lenses of film cameras long ago and is far from being a novice in this playing field.

What Is Canon SX20 IS

It bears repeating that the Canon SX20IS is a replacement for the last year's popular 10-Megapixel Canon SX10 IS. The Canon PowerShot SX20 IS is a digital camera with 12-Megapixel resolution, 20x optical zoom (28-560mm in 35-mm equivalent, with maximum apertures of f/2.8 at wide angle and f/5.7 at full telephoto), optical image stabilization and ISO up to 3200.

The camera has face detection that works in conjunction with automatic white balance, focus and even exposure and features servo AF tracking. It adds an HDMI out and ability to record HD video in 720p HD (1280x720) resolution to the features of the SX10. The connectivity options include fast USB 2.0 and HDMI for HD video. Also, you can output video and sound to your TV (be it your pictures or video clips) using the supplied audio/video cable in PAL or NTSC format.

Just as the SX10 IS before it, the Canon SX20 IS has an articulated high-resolution 2.5-inch LCD screen, uses 4 AA batteries and stores photos on SD memory cards. The powerful 20x optical zoom and optical image stabilization work together to give you sharp pictures when shooting handheld at long distances or indoors. This is probably the highest optical zoom on the market today and optical image stabilization makes this 20x optical zoom usable without introducing blurriness when shooting handheld.

The Canon SX20 IS retains the hot shoe adapter for external flashes added in the S5 IS. And it comes with a nice-looking lens hood to fight flare from shooting at an angle to the sun that otherwise causes sun rays to hit the lens surface.

Features

The Canon SX20 IS features 12-Megapixel resolution, which lets you print enlargements or crop the part of the picture and print it with excellent results. Obviously, the 12MP is more than enough for very sharp standard 6x4-inch or 5x7-inch prints. There are lower resolution settings to choose from, if so desired.

The Canon SX20 IS has an autofocus assist light for faster and more accurate focusing in low light. The assist light works very well. For shooting in different lighting situations, the SX20 features selectable ISO settings: 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 and 3200 as well as Auto and High ISO Auto. The camera also features manual focus (with focus bracketing) in addition to several automatic focusing modes and a face detection. The face detection not only adjusts the focus, but also the exposure to make sure that faces of subjects are properly exposed (as well as focused).

LCD and Viewfinder

The camera has a fully articulated (rotating) 2.5-inch LCD screen with 230,000-pixel resolution with 100-percent coverage, meaning what you see on the screen is exactly what will be on the photo (size-wise). The screen is sturdy but requires quite a bit of force to flip outward or rotate as a result.

There is also an electronic viewfinder (EVF) for shooting in bright light or to conserve battery power. Since it is difficult (if not impossible) to make a 20x zooming optical viewfinder and impossible to easily confirm focus in a non-SLR optical viewfinder, the Canon S5 IS has an EVF, which works pretty well.

The LCD and the EVF are fluid, have pleasing colors and good resolution. They are fluid even in low light, unlike some earlier designs. The EVF’s resolution is not as high as the LCD's, but is adequate.

Exposure and Metering

The light metering mode selections include Evaluative, Center-Weighted and Spot (center or AF point). I usually find Spot and Center-Weighted modes useful when taking pictures of people at distances where the flash doesn't reach against a lighter background (or even more so in backlight). In Evaluative metering mode, the faces might turn out underexposed, unless you dial some exposure compensation, but the Spot mode helps to fix this.

Additionally, the Spot metering mode can help you figure out the proper exposure in difficult lighting conditions by metering off the object with known tonal characteristics and then dialing some exposure compensation. The camera also features a live histogram for evaluating the exposure and the over/underexposure potential. And the recently-added (to many cameras) feature called face detection helps with photos of people. The evaluative metering incorporates data from the face detection system to ensure that faces are properly exposed.

The exposure modes include Program AE, Aperture and Shutter Priority mode, and a full Manual mode. The shutter speed ranges between 15 and 1/3,200 sec with speeds slower than 1.3 sec available in Shutter Priority or Manual mode and operating with noise reduction (camera taking a second photo with its shutter closed and then subtracting that picture from the one you just took to reduce noise from “hot” pixels).

Focusing

The Canon SX20 IS has a Macro mode as well as Super Macro mode, in which it can focus as close as zero inches (which also translates to zero cm).

Focus Range:

Normal: 50 cm (1.6 ft.) - infinity (W)/ 1 m (3.3 ft.) - infinity (T)
Macro: 1 - 50 cm (0.39 in. to 1.6 ft.)
Super Macro: 0 - 10 cm (0 to 3.9 in.)

Movie Recording

This model can record video up to HD resolution of 720p (1280x720) and can output the HD signal over its HDMI connection. Admittedly, the 720p resolution is not 1080i/p, but it is more than sufficient for virtually all uses. The camera has a built-in stereo microphone for recording sounds while filming video clips and a speaker, which can be used for operational sounds or to play back the sounds recorded.

Power

The Canon SX20 IS is powered by four AA-sized batteries with 4 disposable AA batteries included. Of course, rechargeable batteries are more economical and last longer on one charge than disposable alkaline batteries. Therefore, you have to get your rechargeable batteries, preferably NiMH of high capacity and a charger if you plan to use the camera at all as the alkaline batteries that are included don't last long and cannot be recharged. I have used 4 Rayovac 2300 mAh rechargeable NiMH batteries with this camera.

In the Box

The camera comes with 4 AA-sized disposable batteries, a neck strap, a stereo video cable, USB cable, a lens cap, a lens hood and a CD-ROM disc with software and manuals.

In Operation

I found the camera to be well built and have a solid feel. It has a SLR-style body and is relatively convenient to hold. Upon arrival, I loaded my four 2300 mAh Rayovac NiMH batteries in the camera, inserted my 2GB SD Kingston Elite Pro card, set the time and was ready to shoot.

Performance

The Canon SX20 IS is impressively fast in operation. The camera power-up takes less than 2 seconds (mostly taken by the extension of its lens) and is relatively quiet. The camera focuses very fast as well (under a second), which is at least as fast as the Panasonic FZ18 and possibly slightly better.

The zooming is impressively precise and fast. It also seems quieter that that of the older S5 model, possibly due to a use of the VCM motor in the lens. The slower speed of zooming lets you fine-tune the composition precisely, which is especially important with a 20x zoom.

The correct way to use a digital (or film) camera is to pre-focus first by pointing the camera and half-pressing the shutter release button to make camera obtain/lock the focus, then pressing the button all the way top actually take the picture with, possibly, recomposing in the middle. The camera’s shutter lag when pre-focused is virtually absent and the picture is taken almost instantaneously. The shot-to-shot delay is a bit more than one second. In high-speed shooting modes, the images were captured at about 2 frames per second.

As is always the case, shooting with flash is slower since the flash needs time to recharge. I was not surprised to see that the flash recycle time can reach 7 seconds (albeit in the worst-case scenario, shooting in low light at f/5.7). In average scenarios it does not take as long and the screen never goes blank in the meantime, unlike some 2-AA battery equipped Canons of the A-line.

The 4-AA battery cameras have a distinct edge over the 2-AA cameras. The cameras that use 2 AA batteries recycle their flashes noticeably slower.

Focusing

The Canon SX20 IS focuses fast, even in dim light and even at full telephoto. It had no issues in any kind of light indoors.

Face Detection

The camera features face detection technology. The face detection appeared in cameras several years ago and it works surprisingly well, finding faces in the frame, showing you that it found them by displaying focusing rectangles over them, focusing on them and ensuring that faces are not over- or underexposed.

Manual Focus

In addition to its automatic focus, the camera has a manual focus capability. When focusing manually, you see the focus area enlarged to help you fine-tune your focus and you also see the distance markings. But I find manual focus to be rarely needed as the automatic focus works really well.

Battery Life

I disabled continuous image stabilization as it reduces battery life and, more importantly, produces slightly more motion blur in images in comparison to the image stabilization during the shutter release only (which I used). I was able to take more than 210 pictures without seeing a low-battery warning.

Picture Quality

Obviously, one of the most important qualities of a camera is its picture quality. It is probably well-known that overall, Canon cameras have uniformly excellent colors, good sharpness and produce images that look good printed and displayed on computer screen (there are rare exceptions, of course).

But the Canon SX20 IS is no exception. It produces excellent pictures, which have richly-saturated, pleasing colors and are sharp from wide angle to. I really like the way this camera renders the sky and clouds. In fact, I always thought that Canon cameras produced best-looking colors, which is not something I can say about Panasonic cameras (which are otherwise very good).

The image stabilization worked very well and let me take handheld photos at full telephoto at up to 1/150s and sometimes at even slower speeds. I also could take some handheld photos at 1/10 at full wide angle. This is much better than the rule of the recommended slowest handheld shutter speeds (1/equivalent focal length) suggests. Without image stabilization I wouldn't be able to take pictures at the above shutter speeds. 1/1000 at telephoto and 1/25 at wide angle would be the slowest I could use with no fear of ending up with blurry photos (which is sometimes only apparent after you review them on a computer screen or a printout).

The camera exhibits some very slight barrel distortion at wide angle, but no noticeable pincushion distortion at telephoto. There is some chromatic aberration (purple fringing) in high-contrast scenes, especially at the telephoto end of the zoom range. As is usually the case with mega-zoom cameras, the telephoto shots have slightly soft corners, but the effect is very slight. The sharper pictures are attainable if you stay away from the extremes of the focal lengths and apertures, again, as is usually the case with all cameras and lenses.

I tested different sensitivity settings. I saw no noise at ISO 80. As is always the case, at higher sensitivity settings, the noise starts to appear. When viewed on the computer screen (at the full resolution), at ISO 200, you can see noise appear in the shadows/darker areas and ISO 400 has quite detectable noise, and the ISO 800 features even worse noise, which becomes rather bad and the detail level suffers too. Fortunately, you can avoid having to use it in most situations by simply using a slower shutter speed and/or larger apertures (e.g. F2.8 at wide angle). And image stabilization lets you do the aforementioned in the situations where lesser cameras wouldn’t.

So the image stabilization allows you to use slower speeds handheld without fear of motion blur appearing in your pictures. But if you have to have a faster shutter speed, then you have to use ISO 400-1,600. Surprisingly, the noise at ISO 800 is not as bad as I expected and ISO 800 photos can be printed at 4x6. You could print ISO 1,600 0r 3,200 pictures, but I would only recommend it in situations where you have no other choice. And for larger prints, which camera does well at due to its 12-Megapixel resolution, stick to the lower end of the ISO spectrum and the pictures will pleasantly surprise you.

Ease of Use

The Canon menu system is easy to use. Overall, the ease of use is very high and almost reaches my all-time favorite (Panasonic). And obviously, if you used a Canon camera before, you will not need much time, if at all, to adjust to its menus and controls.

Computer Connectivity

The USB 2.0 on this Canon is a "real" USB 2.0 High Speed - the transfer speeds are fast. I always prefer to use my memory card reader however: for speed and convenience. So I have not tested the transfer speed directly from the camera and instead used the card reader.

Improvements Over The Canon SX10 IS

The Canon SX20 IS is very similar to its predecessor, the Canon SX10 IS. It features a couple of major improvements over the SX10. The most important improvements are the resolution of still photos (12MP vs 10MP of the predecessor) and videos (now 720p HD video vs 640x480) and an HDMI out,

Durability

Based on experience with previous models of the same series (e.g. S5 IS, S3 IS) and on the perceived build quality of this model, the camera should be durable, unless subjected to extreme conditions. Obviously, water, sand and drops are not recommended.

Bottom Line

The Canon PowerShot SX20 IS is an excellent choice if you need a camera with a powerful 20x optical zoom, 12-Megapixel resolution and optical image stabilization. Its wide-angle capability and HD video recording with an HDMI out are also very cool. The only reservation I have (which is something most people have no problem with) is its use of four AA batteries, whereas I prefer a custom Li-Ion battery pack. Otherwise, I highly recommend it. It is an excellent camera.

Recommended
Yes