When you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Sure, they look the same, have the same ultrawide-angle 35x zoom lens, and, for the most part, have the same shooting modes. But a switch to a new sensor and new image processor seemed to have improved both photo quality and shooting performance, though its performance is still sucking wind a bit behind competing models from Nikon, Sony, and Panasonic.
For that matter, so is its feature set and its design, particularly if you want to take advantage of its electronic viewfinder and manual controls. On the other hand, it has some of the best JPEG photo quality you're going to find from a high-end megazoom. Overall, photo quality is excellent for this class of camera. Images do get softer and noisier above ISO typical for point-and-shoots--but ISO and are still very usable. Like other "HS" models I've tested this year, the noise and noise reduction are well-balanced so you still get good color and detail up to ISO Colors desaturate some at ISO and , subjects look very soft, and detail is greatly diminished.
While you might not want to view them at larger sizes or heavily crop them, the high-ISO results should be satisfactory for the Web or prints at small sizes, though, again, colors will look a little off. Keep in mind, too, that if you're shooting indoors with lens extended, you'll need the higher ISOs to keep shutter speeds fast enough to prevent blur.
Also, the auto white balance is warm indoors, which doesn't help color when combined with higher ISOs; use the presets or use the custom option when possible. Unfortunately, there is no option to shoot raw files with this camera so if you're a pixel peeper and not happy with Canon's JPEG processing, you're stuck. Color accuracy is excellent, producing bright and vivid results. Exposure is generally very good, but highlights tend to blow out.
Other manufacturers have been solving this to some degree with high-dynamic range modes that will take two or three shots at different exposures and overlay them for a more-balanced shot. Canon doesn't offer a mode like that and its i-Contrast feature is more for rescuing shadow detail than highlights. However, the SX40 does have exposure bracketing, though it shoots slowly, so your subjects need to be still.
Video quality is on par with a very good HD pocket video camera: good enough for Web use and nondiscriminating TV viewing. The full HD video records at 24fps, and though panning the camera will create judder and there is visible trailing on moving subjects, the video is watchable. In addition, the four-way navigator arrow buttons provide a few handy shortcuts as explained in the Controls section above. A 4GB card will hold 1, Large, Fine images, or 14 min.
Canon claims a shooting capacity of shots with the EVF or shots using the LCD or a playback time of nine hours. I was able to go several shoots before recharging, and even then I didn't get a low battery warning. We're glad to see a small plastic cap for the Canon SX40's battery, to avoid accidentally discharging it when it isn't in the camera. And the charger needs no cord to plug into the wall, a blessing for travelers.
The battery compartment door needs no lock or lever, pulling out sideways before it flips open. You may also want to invest in a lens hood for the SX40 HS. Canon continues a policy of providing lens hoods only as an option.
There's always a lot more to the cameras we review than any of us has a chance to explore. So I focus primarily on the basic shooting experience in Program mode. But with this year's models, some of the more advanced features have been irresistible. Handheld Twilight Scene mode is one of them. I'm thrilled to report it has made it onto a Canon after appearing on other brands. It's really a winner for those very dark scenes in which nothing moves.
And, in case you haven't guessed, it isn't just for twilight. Or night scenes. I took a shot of a car interior in a garage just to prove it opens up previously unphotographable scenes to the enquiring mind.
High-Speed Video is another. Like macrophotography, it shows you a world you otherwise can't see. But anything that moves is game. Even some of the goofier effects were worth committing to memory. I like Canon's Fish-Eye effect. Toy Camera and Miniature were fun to play with, too. And just when you thought low-light shooting was out for small digicams, with even ISO suffered loss of detail, here comes a new round of cameras that can handle ISOs from to 3, with grace.
It's pretty clear that the manufacturers have been working on this issue -- and with more success than anyone expected. It's an astonishing 35x optical zoom starting at a very wide 24mm. You can easily extend the focal length beyond your ability to frame the subject -- even with Canon's image stabilization helping out. And when you add 4x digital zoom to that, you're not going to leave the house without a tripod.
Or, like me, you'll just confine yourself to the optical zoom range. Or something short of that. My gallery shot of the Golden Gate Bridge tower is a case in point. So is the flag atop the Ferry building. The tower was the maximum 35mm focal length equivalent of 3, The Ferry Building shot was a mere Both were very difficult to frame handheld. I consider them lucky shots, frankly. As is the Transamerica Pyramid at 4x digital zoom in the zoom series.
On the other end of the spectrum, macro shooting was a bit disappointing. You don't have to shoot macro at the widest wide-angle focal length there is a bit of range there but you do.
And that means moving quite close to the subject. And distorting the subject quite a bit. The gallery has macro shots of a wet iris and some coins that are unhappily distorted. The iris even looks like it's drooping. I popped Photoflex's FlashFire trigger on the hot shoe to fire a StarFlash at my coins and it worked exactly as I expected it to. Having a hot shoe on your megazoom just adds to the fun.
But once you've had the fun, you miss it on cameras that don't include one. I did manage to get a bird shot for once, too. Birds being rather distant subjects in general, I did resort to 3.
But the shutter was very responsive, dSLR-like in fact. More successful was my butterfly shot. No digital zoom. No macro. Just across the table from me. That long lens reaching discretely across and capturing every hair on its body. Detail from the The carnation shot, the bricks, the yellow rose, all were nicely captured with some lovely blurring in the background.
But the rosemary shot in sunlight against a dark background was overexposed. It does show how smart the focus is, though. A walk along the Embarcadero on a sunny day provided plenty of opportunities to push the Canon SX40 HS as a photo-making machine.
There were compositions to frame from awkward spots and obstacles between the camera and the subject. But whatever captured my eye, whether it was the big rivets on an iron bridge or the red lamp on the bumper below it, it was delightful to compose the image with the Canon SX40 HS. But there shouldn't be a reason why this battery shouldn't fit a similar camera of a different make.
If lithium ion become a standard size that fit a broad range of products then there is chance of getting one in a remote place. To give an example we have a Nokia whose battery died recently. I managed to source a Chinese branded one but even this was being phased out.
Just imagine 8 years down the road needing get a battery for your camera that still works, only to be foiled by the manufacturer changing the shape of the battery slightly so it doesn't fit your 8 year old camera anymore! It was very useful when the light off and we need to charge our Li-on Battery.
Hope it will solve your problem. Anybody who needs GPS data for all pictures should just cut back on the drug prescriptions so they can recall where the heck they were when they pressed the shutter.
I mean, really, go buy a point-and-shoot camera with GPS instead; the rest of us know where we were and what we shot. I may make an exception for National Geographic photogs who wouldn't be buying this camera anyway for other reasons , but otherwise GPS is a crutch for amateurs and has nothing to do with core imagery and creative photography.
If it is your discerning feature between two cameras, then you are not a photographer, you're a map freak. Anyone who writes an arrogant comment like you needs to cut back on his drug usage. Lots of people, including myself, take too many photos a day to remember the exact location of each shot.
It's a useful addition to good photos if the place is identifyable for later usage. Agreed with the reply above. While shooting around your town or city, you may immediately recognize the location of every picture you took. But if you travel internationally, especially countries that do not speak your language where place names will last only in short term memory, you will have a tough time remembering where you pressed the shutter.
It's a very useful and practical feature for many people, and nobody's forcing you to use it, so just relax. The original comment was utterly contemptuous arrogant ignorance in the extreme. I've used my GPS to track my position along rural roads to see exactly which turn of the road I was on when I took each photo. The person who posted the original comment is an impostor, not a real photographer in any genuine sense of the word.
No one with any real world professional experience in travel photography would ever have posted such an utterly ridiculous comment as that. But there is whole world out there and some of us travel, and to places other than the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty. If you meander across borders, it's hard to be certain where a shot was taken sometimes. Perhaps it was made by a luddite like myself who doesn't understand the reason for GPS OR for articulated screens it just looks like something to break and replace later, kind of like power windows.
I can usually tell you the county and state I no longer travel internationally , but that's as good as I can get. I don't care for some reason about exactly where within a city block - it's more of a "somewhere around there" to me.
I'm more interested in the composition of the image, the light, etc. What I have discovered is that behind the camera I am not "experiencing" what I'm filming - I get to experience it later which is a serious disconnect regarding my son's football games.
Kind of frustrating. Pre GPS I took shots in many countries and at best had a vague idea where they were shot some years later. When I started posting shots to Panoramio and attempted to map them with Google I spent hours trying to be precise by using Google Maps and streetview.
GPS would have saved me considerable time. That is a very short-sighted remark. It's not just about "remembering" in that case, why bother with photography at all? For my field work, I need the as-exact-as-possible co-ordinates of every picture I take.
The amount of time and effort and risk for mistakes saved with a built-in GPS would not be trivial. I keep seeing the canned reviews that are just the retoric from the manufacturer.
It is so absurd that a camera is reviewed as good or excellent and then in the CON's it states it has soft images.
If the camera produces soft images how is it good? I thought the camera was to capture images not see how much BS you can pack into a tiny box. I would like to see actual photos taken with the various cameras at different ISO's.
It seem like all you get are reviews of the DSLR's. Why not reviews of all those superzooms that people are buying? Then perhaps one could make a decision based on photos not hype. This is NOT a review! You need to wait for a 'hands on' review here where the Dpreview team will offer detailed information about quality, build, features, etc. Personaly, I think this is the perfect camera for me. After checking out the FX specs, it appears that it is the better camera, but at what cost?
I don't care to learn a new completely new camera read: different brand and at times, I may only have a few seconds to capture that perfect shot that might be lost because of old habits.
Not only that, I don't care to replace my speedlite flash. This should be a huge step up from my current SX10 IS. Not only that, I'm about sick of that x video.
And 10fps full res burst Super-zooms are cameras for travel. Nowadays, virtually every photo software and storage site incorporates GPS functionality, so that the user can find out exactly where the photo was taken.
Even a two-week long trip can take you through enough similar locations, to make you wonder if this was in city A or City B, village A or village B, or even what country it was. Again, the main reason I see for getting a super-zoom is to use as a travel camera, where it is often the best compromise between convenience, features and size.
And what does your smartphone has to do with wondering where that rice field photo you are looking at 5 years from now was taken? A barely-passable system of organization will tell you where the photo was taken, and when. For eternity. If your cam doesn't have GPS, but your phone does, you can record locations using the phone or the phone and cam in combination.
No offense, based on your responses, I would guess that 1 you have never used a camera with a good GPS when traveling, and 2 that you do not travel much. For me GPS has been a revelation: I do several trips a year, virtually all to multiple locations. Before GPS, I'd come back with a couple of thousand photos and sometimes it would be a while before I get the time to edit them.
Many are shots taken while driving or hiking, so the locale is unfamiliar to me. Often I'd be trying to guess where a shot was taken small islands are the worst : Even if I remember where a shot was taken, often I remember the name of the location or never knew the name.
GPS has changed all this. Now I can plot my shots on Google Earth, or on any of the other map services offered by virtually all of the major photo sites. For instance, I went through Micronesia over Christmas. Canoeing around small islands the names of which I never knew, I took a ton of shots of locations that I would never know how to find on a map.
Same for meandering around islands and going through villages the names of which were then unknown to me. With the photos tagged with GPS coordinates, I can zoom in on the exact location in Google Earth, and actually find out where I've been :.
As to the phone thing, it is absurd to think that I would try to tag with it, and then enter the coordinates manually into LightRoom. Works great for me. Hello, Well it has a hot shoe ;D. To Williams, this SX40 is designed for use by everyday, ordinary people and the camera happens to have some outstanding features on it to make those everyday people feel as if they're shooting like a pro.
Of course, you can get better results from a DSLR! If you're someone who is complaining about "no raw" then you shouldn't even be making any comments about this camera. It's not in the same league with a DSLR so don't try to make it that way. The SX40 sometimes provides "walk around" shots that are different from what I can get with my 7D and "L" lenses without all the switch-glass effort and the umpteen pounds of glass in my backpack when I am shooting for me instead of the client.
If anyone knows, please post this somewhere under a simple findable heading, e. I'm referring to the sensor corrupting, and they do corrupt and the repair cost might outweigh the second-hand market value. I'm still smarting from my Canon SX, for which I bought the lensmate attachment, the filter adaptor, extra lenses to fit onto the filter adaptor, multiple sets of batteries, dedicated camera bag and other extras, all worthless when the sensor corrupted after the 1 year warranty expired.
Sorry about your luck. I, too have the SX 10 and it is still going strong after more than two years. I've also purchased many of the same accessories as you and am really quite pleased with it.
That's what makes me salivate even more for the SX 40! I have bought, owned and shot to hell and back an SX1, SX10, and SX30, alongside my 7D with "L" lenses on pro and personal shooting trips without incident. In the beginning I just used the SX cameras for "test" shots and location coverage, but with the SX20 under good daylight the shots are hard to discern from DSLR shots in regular enlargement.
I have taken thousands of shots with the SX20 without issue. I have friends and relatives who have taken my recommendation on this camera and are very pleased over the past two years of all kinds of shooting.
I've had my SX 10 for 3 years. One warranty repair free , and no other problems. My wife liked it so much she bought the SX It is less than a year ago that Canon has released the SX30!
The lens is the same. The big zoom is questionable, I still say as I have said in my user review that the pictures look more like a digital zoom than an optical zoom.
Also reading the owner reviews it seems there are two groups of users, lovers and haters, the first celebrating the picture quality and the later stating that pictures are washed out with detail missing.
The lenses in the superzooms are such a compromise one should wonder if it is worth it to have such a stretch in a lens. The auto setting is a nightmare in the SX30, doing basically what ever it wants and now they automated the SX40 even further?!
Any how untill it gets professinoally tested and compared to other super zooms here at dp I will not even consider looking at it. My one complaint about the SX30 the big zoom beig the appeal - no extra telephoto lens is it's a slow camera.
The SX40 looks alot faster. I would like the focus hunting at the long end of the zoom range fixed too. I personally know of 2 professional photographers who use superzooms in addition to their pro equipment. Depending on the situation and the client, the long range is adequate for many shots and saves them from having to purchase really expensive zooms.
I've been a fan of this camera line since the S3is. This one might be the all-purpose grab-and-go buddy I've been waiting for. I shoot commercials at 60i, but like shooting personal video at 24p, for its movie look which is why I balked at the SX Please reread the third paragraph under Manual control and creative support.
Have you seen the hot-shoe? It could be wireless control of Speedlites which would be pretty good anyway. Confirmed, hot-shoe and wireless flash control, great! Nice to see focus bracketing.
Lots of features to have fun with here, if lens and IQ are good, it'll be a winner. Yes, there is a hotshoe. Please go to Canon's website and find the info for the SX Once there, click on "Brochures and Manuals" and you'll be able to find just about anything you want to know on the SX I'll stick with my SX1IS.
The ultra zoom is nice but other features it lacks. They might figure out thru firmware updates to add RAW in the future.
Getting a bit tired of this.. Then dumbing down other fundamental features Something else that seems to be getting left off cameras these days.. In favour on waving them about in front of your face like an iphone! Yes, the bridges and G series went downhill after the Pro1. The G series have been slowly climbing back up and will get there if they put a good fast lens on them. At least the bridge lenses have got wider 24mm. The mm must be fun if it handles well, here's hoping the stabiliser works well!!!
Wonder if we could put the Pro1's 1. That would give us a mm f5. I agree totally, I had a Canon Pro1 all those years ago and it was a very good camera for it's time. Many of the images on the first page my web site were taken with it. Also don't forget it even had an Canon "L" series lens, serious stuff.
We seem to Have seriously lost the plot with bridge cameras You have to buy an adapter for it, according to Canon, and the filters that can be used on this camera are 67 mm. I'm not picking on you but I really get weary of people complaining about this-and-that on a camera when the solution cna answers to their questions can simply be found in the manual, which can be downloaded and saved. I agree on the lack of RAW. And I think this is Canon's strategy as well.
SXHS is an excellent camera. I had one so I know. Zoom should be most important in a zoom camera. AF Tracking. AF Selective. AF Center. AF MultiArea. AF Live View. AF Face Detection. AF Contrast Detection. AF Phase Detection. Number of Focus Points. Number of Cross Focus Points. Video Features. Video Resolutions. Max Video Resolution. Video Formats.
Microphone Port. Headphone Port. Wireless Connectivity. Environmental Sealing. Water Proof. Dust Proof. Shock Proof. Crush Proof. Freeze Proof. Physical Dimensions.
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