The Canon PowerShot SX260 HS has a wide focal range inside a pocket-sized body that includes GPS. Is this all-in-one worth your greenbacks?
With every camera manufacturer fielding a 'travel zoom' this summer – the pitch beingness that you become a much longer lens attain than your Smartphone can manage, but the actual photographic camera will still fit in a pocket – Catechism has entered the fray with its 20x optical zoom Canon PowerShot SX260 HS.
This sits just in a higher place the every bit new SX240 HS model that, unlike its bigger brother, doesn't include GPS. Both cameras offering a focal range equivalent to an ultra wide angle 25-500mm on a 35mm film photographic camera, supported by lens-based prototype stabilisation, and update the previous SX230 HS model.
Available in iv colours, the SX260 HS matches chief rivals in the Panasonic Lumix TZ30, the Sony Cyber-shot HX20V and the Nikon Coolpix S9300 for specification. Forth with that big zoom we too get born GPS, though the Canon's top resolution is a modest 12.one megapixels, confronting the Panasonic's 14MP and the Sony's 18MP.
Pixels aren't everything of form, as indicated by the 'High Sensitivity' HS suffix, which here refers to the SX260's marriage of a back illuminated yet standard-sized 1/2.3-inch CMOS sensor with a Digic 5 processor, as found in Canon's DSLRs.
The hope is that this will forbid grainy images in lower light weather condition if yous're non using the pop-up flash neatly sunk into the Canon's top plate, fifty-fifty if the maximum lens discontinuity is a non-and so-bright f/three.5 (the lower the number, the more than light permit in).
The PowerShot SX260 HS retails for a manufacturer's suggested £329.99, which puts it at the top end of its class with Panasonic and Sony competitors. Equally street pricing is a more realistic £260 to £299 however, could this exist your perfect travel companion for those spur-of-the-moment holiday snaps and Full Hard disk videos?
Canon PowerShot SX260 HS: Controls
A familiar mix of plastic and metallic, the SX260 HS feels reassuringly solid when gripped in the palm. The Canon's blueprint is more practical than it is cool, its large and obvious buttons majoring on ease of employ rather than mode conscious minimalism.
Thus we get a Smarties sized shutter release push button with just the correct amount of give encircled by a broad lever for operating the zoom via the forefinger. A power button sits slightly indented to its right, requiring a firm press and thus fugitive accidental activation.
The backplate features a multi directional command pad encircled by a reassuringly stiff curlicue wheel – nosotros detest annihilation that feels likewise loose and therefore fiddly to be precise with – both of which are used for tabbing or scrolling through menu functions or saved images.
Dissever video recording and playback buttons also feature, equally exercise self-explanatory display and menu buttons. Ticking the final box for essential features is a shooting mode dial, here the size of a five pence piece and jutting out slightly from the body to enable settings to be alighted upon with a spin of the thumb.
Canon has crammed 12 settings effectually this punch, including full manual likewise as fully automated 'Smart Motorcar' command, comparing any discipline earlier the lens with 58 on-board presets to observe the closest/about suitable settings match.
Also on the dial is a Live View Control, which is similar to Olympus' Live Mode, though less flashy, in that information technology allows rudimentary tweaking of exposure (light/dark), colour temperature and saturation (cool/warm, neutral/vivid) past tabbing left or correct along an on-screen slider. Resulting image adjustments are visible in existent time.
Once again, the idea here is to simplify operation for those who want to venture beyond pointing and shooting only are turned off past talk of apertures and yes, 'colour temperature'. And straightforward it indeed is.
Canon PowerShot SX260 HS: Screen
With finger controls over at the right hand side of the photographic camera, iii quarters of the Canon PowerShot SX260 HS' back plate is taken upward with a standard four:3-aspect ratio (not widescreen) LCD. At that place's no additional viewfinder, which used to exist at one fourth dimension where Canon's PowerShot range differed from the more streamlined, more fashion conscious Ixus family unit of compacts.
At three inches in size, the screen resolution here is a respectable if not quite course leading 461k dots, though information technology's still not piece of cake to make out fine detail whether shooting indoors or out. Nosotros found the LCD to be more a tool to become your shot framing and composition spot on; it's nonetheless better to review the results on a desktop monitor.
Canon PowerShot SX260 HS: Bombardment
With a mains charger provided in the box, the Canon PowerShot SX260 HS is supplied with a rechargeable lithium ion battery that will evangelize 230 pictures from a full charge, or more than 300 minutes of motion-picture show playback, if the GPS facility is deactivated.
Incidentally GPS is either switched on or off by delving into the set up menu – at that place's not a defended GPS setting on the style dial which might have been helpful.
This power functioning is pretty par for the course however, being no better or worse than most of its rivals. That said, the Panasonic TZ30 offers up to slightly better 260 pictures and the Sony HX20V a more than impressive notwithstanding 320 shots.
Catechism PowerShot SX260 HS: Image quality
Best quality JPEG format 12 megapixel stills are achieved on the Canon PowerShot SX260 HS by selecting a Large size, Super Fine quality paradigm pick from the left-of-screen bill of fare bar. This is summoned upward with a press of the office/set button at the centre of the backplate command dial.
Shooting handheld at maximum 500mm equivalent telephoto setting, with a raised safety strip at the front helping steady the camera, we were able to achieve satisfying results with plenty of detail and generally sharp too. Nether bright conditions however this camera appears to struggle to preserve highlight item if left on Smart Auto.
When taking pictures of landscapes the camera will bias foreground detail for example, so that backdrops of skies tin can appear completely white. Luckily so there are manual exposure settings to autumn back on.
At maximum wide-angle there is some slight softening of detail towards the very corners of the frame, simply this is well hidden and only really noticeable if you're actively searching for whatsoever imperfections, as is purple pixels tracing the outline of darker subjects where they see a bright groundwork.
The total extent of the zoom tin exist accessed when shooting movies also. The stereo microphones on the elevation plate did option upwardly a slight mechanical fizz equally we zoomed in or out, but ambient noise in nearly environments would disguise this.
With no alternative selection but to rely on machine focus, the moving picture tin go momentarily soft if framing is adapted, but this is true of the vast majority of stills cameras.
In terms of attempting low lite shooting without flash, images are impressively dissonance/grain free upward to and including ISO1600. At meridian whack low low-cal ISO3200 setting, a gritty appearance is avoided too, though image detail is marginally softer around the edges.
It seems that not over burdening the sensor with pixels has avoided signs that the camera is struggling in less than ideal conditions. Which is a skillful thing.
Canon PowerShot SX260 HS: Verdict
The Canon PowerShot SX260 HS is a thoroughly competent snapshot photographic camera. It packs in all the essentials for anyone looking for a camera that, if you're non bothered about interchangeable lenses, is suitable for committing a wide range of subjects to card, all the same tin can nonetheless be squeezed into a pocket.
Having said that, in terms of image quality and treatment for us it'southward not decisively ahead of its Sony or Panasonic rivals that can be bought for the aforementioned cost, nor the Nikon Coolpix S9300 that can be had for £30 cheaper.
We marginally adopt the Canon images' warmer default look compared with the flatter appearance of its Nikon rival. Incidentally, for anyone who is considering this travel zoom as a holiday accomplice, a forty-metre depth waterproof instance is too optionally available for the SX260 HS.
Canon PowerShot SX260 HS availability: Available now
Canon PowerShot SX260 HS cost: £329.99
Source: https://www.t3.com/au/reviews/canon-powershot-sx260-hs-review
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