Top positive review
11 people found this helpful
Phenomenal bang for the buck for a used camera.
By Sean on Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2017
Decided to purchase one of these used to upgrade from two cameras, a Canon PowerShot A2300 and a Canon PowerShot A3000IS. Had a very limited budget and that didn't deter me. Did quite a few test shots and some test videos, tweaking the settings to my liking as I went along, and I'm very satisfied with the photo quality. The BSI-CMOS sensor this camera has definitely works wonders in low light situations producing about half the noise at the same ISO setting as the A3000IS, which uses a CCD sensor. The A2300 wouldn't have been able to do those low-light shots handheld due to the lack of image stabilization, and would have been the worst performer in low-light situations even if it did have it. Like the two A-series models, the white balance had to be set to the Tungsten preset when shooting indoors under incandescent or compact fluorescent lighting. All of them produced results a bit too yellowish with the auto white balance. Outdoors in daylight or even in cloudy conditions, this camera proves to very capable, especially after tweaking the picture settings to my liking. In cloudy conditions, I found the auto white balance makes things look a bit too cool just like the other two cameras, but changing to the Cloudy preset fixed that. I have tested the aperture priority, shutter priority, and full manual modes and found them very easy to use and I could quickly find the right setting to match the shooting scenario without any hassle. This is a plus for those who want to learn more about photography, and there's always the Program and Auto modes to fall back on. Both of those modes are also very easy to use. This camera is as much at home in Auto mode as it is in the PASM modes. Results from the video mode so far proves to be promising. Compared to the A2300, which I was previously using to record videos, it records sound in stereo instead of mono. The A2300 could only do 720p video while this camera can do 1080p. This camera is capable of continuous autofocus and the full extent of the 14x optical zoom is also available while shooting video. Exposure seems to adapt to varying lighting scenarios very well. There is a bit of noise in video shot in lower-light situations, but it's less than either A-series camera I own. The same auto-white balance issues I discussed earlier are present while recording video. Both video and audio quality are very good, but won't match the quality that models from other manufacturers have that shoot AVCHD video. Haven't used it enough at this point to determine how good the battery life is. I know it is rated at about 210 photos per charge, or about an hour of video. I'll find out soon enough if those ratings prove to be true. Compared to test videos and images I've seen from the SX 600 and 700 lineup over the past few years, I'd say this one performs better at higher ISO's and videos produce much less noise in lower light situations. The SX 600 series cameras can be picked up for $200-300 new, with the SX 700 series retailing for over $300. The SX 230 HS can be found for under $200 used in 2017, and is an awesome deal for the money when compared to stuff you can find brand-new. Overall, I'm very happy with this camera. UPDATE October 30, 2017: Still going strong after a month's worth of usage. I have had a chance to test out the battery life, and it seems to be pretty good for still images provided you stay away from GPS. Battery life while shooting video is a little less than I would have liked, but still, 45 minutes is a bit better compared to some brand-new models from the likes of Nikon and Sony. Most of the photos I have taken over the last month have come out sharp, with only a small handful of photos coming out blurry due to the autofocus missing or camera shake. This is hands down the best camera I've ever owned.
Top critical review
14 people found this helpful
Grainy, Blurry, Loss of Detail
By Hussein In The Membrane on Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2011
If you're looking for a good point and shoot camera that delivers stunning pictures without a lot of tweaking and such, this IS NOT IT. While it's true that this camera performs better in low light conditions than other point n shoots, that improvement comes at the cost of photo quality in every other shooting condition. Not a very good trade-off in my opinion, and even those low light shots are underwhelming to say the least. Most low light shots taken without the flash are still quite grainy, and most have an amber tint. Battery life on this model certainly IS all it's cracked up to be. In other words, it's dismal. The battery is quickly depleted and takes a little more than two hours to charge. You might also find this excerpt from the owner's manual section on charging the battery interesting: "The battery may develop a bulge. This is a normal characteristic of the battery and does not indicate a problem. However if the battery bulges to the point where it will no longer fit into the camera, please contact a Canon Customer Support Help Desk." (p. 15, bottom paragraph). Couldn't a major player like Canon come up with a better power solution than a battery with a known design flaw? What if the battery develops a bulge while it's in your camera? What about the meat and potatoes of any camera review, namely photo quality? Most of several hundred images I shot were blurry, grainy, and either washed out or amber tinted, depending on which settings the camera automatically chose based on shooting conditions. There were, admittedly, a few exceptions. They were brilliant, and if those exceptions were instead the rule, I'd be raving about the camera instead of panning it. At least the potential for that kind of photography is there, so I'll give it this: it has potential. But we aren't paying for potential, we're paying for performance. This camera frequently chooses inappropriate focal points, focusing on extraneous items in the composition space and blurring the intended subject. Sure, lots of shots taken with this Canon look pretty okay until they're viewed at full size on a computer screen. Then they're grainy as heck, with way too much loss of detail. I'm not talking about enlarging images, just about full size viewing on a computer screen, which is how all my photos will be viewed (on a computer screen). The position of the flash on the camera causes it to be obstructed by the extended lens when shooting close up/macro, resulting in the lens' shadow being projected on to the subject. That's the worst of it, but there's another problem with it that most reviewers have already pointed out - it's an ergonomic disaster. Because of its placement, there's just no good way to hold the camera stable when shooting. If you're not careful when you're turning the camera on, you'll wind up preventing the darn thing from even opening with your finger. The flash isn't just in a bad place on top of the camera, it actually curves around the corner just enough so that even when held on the side, you can easily obstruct the flash, causing it not to open. As far as all the tweaks and features, I bought the camera in spite of those, not for them. I couldn't care less about GPS, I'd NEVER settle for editing my photos on a tiny 3" screen, and I hate cheezy effects, which I find most on-board effects to be. On the positive side, Canon's photo import and edit software is really quite good compared to others, including my old Kodak's. Importing images to your hard drive is quick and as easy as pie. Basic editing tasks are too. No doubt some will tell me which settings I should have used and which ones I should have tweaked, but that's hardly the point of "point and shoot", is it? Granted, being able to tweak basic photographic settings comes in handy for shoots that are planned ahead of time, but shooting on the fly requires speed, and there's nothing speedy about navigating the complicated menu on this camera to get to those settings. I didn't buy this camera for studio work, I bought it for its supposed point and shoot capabilities, and they are woefully inadequate. My experience with Canon digital cameras has led me to conclude that they're overhyped, but there's no denying that they have a loyal following nonetheless. I wish I could say I'd joined their ranks as a result of buying this camera, but I can't, nor can I recommend it.
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