Canon SX10 / SX1: November 2008

Friday, November 21, 2008

Inferior display and viewfinder on SX1 confirmed

The viewfinder is wide screen as stated by Canon Europe
Viewfinder EVF (0.40" type), aspect ratio 16:9, approx. 148,000 dots

Just got my hand on the SX1 manual and it seems I am right

If you shoot 10mp with the SX1 you have a 2.17" screen (something between the 2" from the S3IS and the 2.5" from the S5IS) with a 172.000 pixel resolution and your viewfinder will have a 0.31" with 110.000 pixel resolution and that is worse than the Canon S1IS from 2004 with EVF (0.33" type), approx. 114.000 pixels

Don´t believe me? Here is a 1:1 pixel count chart I made to believe it myself.

Since the viewfinder of the S2IS is even a bit better than the one from the SX1 in 10mp mode I made a side by side comparison so you will get an idea. Please concentrate only on the sharp parts of the image the unsharp is distortion of the picture taking camera not the actual clarity of the viewfinder.

Ok, so why am I so obsessed with the low resolution viewfinder you might ask.
When I brought my brand spanking new Canon S2 I wanted a camera with manual focus but with that low resolution viewfinder and the low resolution display what was too small (1.8") also I was not able to use successful the manual focus. It did frustrate me so much that most of the time I did not use the S2. Now 3 and a half year later I will not make the same mistake.

bye bye

So after 6 days of testing I returned the SX10 to the store today for a full refund.
I will wait for the SX1 to come out and will verify if I am right about the viewfinder what will have less than half or the SX10 resolution when shooting 10mp. If this is the case the SX1 will be a big no no for me.
I am not sure if 320 Euros for just the slow 20x lens, the double size in megapixel and the DIGIC4 processor without any improvement in the video section is the smart thing to spend to replace my S2IS.Canon uses the same VGA video size they had on the S1IS in 2004 with the DIGIC 1 processor and just added stereo with the S2IS. Now they changed to H264 in a MOV format wrapper with a halfassed compression what safes just 25 to 30 % of the filesize from the AVI the S2IS had.

Compare the size of the frame from the display with the thick frames from the Canon S and SX series. If Canon would make the frame this slim they could easily fit a 3" on both SX models.
Maybe Panasonic brings the FZ38 with an articulated screen like the TZ5 (resolution and size) similar the one they have on the Lumix G1 that combined with the right viewfinder and I would get that one in an instant.

how much is that puppy in the window?

SX10 starting 312Euro

SX1 starting 464 Euro

Cheapest one here on Gran Canaria I found was 320 Euro

Thursday, November 20, 2008

get me a screwdriver

The SX1 and SX10 lenses compared with the G10

If you want to know what´s inside

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

some troubleing thoughts about the SX1

I need to pick your brain about something I just stubled over

Normal resolution with the SX1 or SX10 3.648 x 2.736 = 10mp.Wide resolution with the SX1 3.640 x 2.160 = 7.86mp so just a crop of the 10mp

Now if you shoot normal 10mp with the SX1 widescreen, the picture will be resized for the screen and you have a black bar on either side that leaves 110k pixel for the viewfinder and 172k pixel for the display if I did my calculation right.

SX10 screen 2.5" 230k ca 552x416 - 4:3 10mp
viewfinder 0.44" 235k ca. ca. 560x420 - 4:3 10mp

SX1 screen 2.8" 230k ca. 639x360 - 16:9 7.8mp
(172k ca. 478x360 in 4x3 10mp)
viewfinder 0.40" 148k ca. 513x289 -16:9 7.8mp
(110k ca. 383x289 in 4x3 10mp)
So manual focus will be almost impossible with the viewfinder and not so good with the display.
If this is right then the viewfinder from the SX1 in 10mp is even worse than the one in the Canon S2 (115k) and will be a deal breaker for me.

Should not a wide screen camera whith wide screen displays also have a wide screen sensor???

Somebody please proof me wrong

I just did some calculation and if I am not wrong, the visible screen is 2.17" if you shoot 10mp with the SX1.
Since on some Canon websites around the world the SX1 data vanished or did not even appeared (out side the USA) maybe somebody pointed that out to Canon.
If they are clever the only solution I see is an option to use the screen full size and crop the top and bottom of the image. Maybe a fast switch via the shortcut button between full image at 2.17" or full screen cropped top and bottom. I think I could live with that kind of solution for the swivel screen but this leaves the 110k viewfinder at 10mp so they need to up that resolution higher than the SX10 or they become the laughingstock of the foto comunity for biggest blunder in 2008 in the category screen.
Somebody should give out an award for that like the broken lens award...

Just noticed the difference between Canon Japan and Canon Germany

The SX1 in Japan has a 200 pixel higher horizontal resolution. Do these people actualy know what they sell?

Another thing about the 4 fps against the 1.4 fps
If you use the autofocus it drops to 1.1 fps against 0.7 fps

the honest cameralabs review

A very comprehensive review with lots of comparisons to the Panasonic FZ28 and the astonishing results compared with the DSLR Canon EOS 450D / XSi
http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Canon_PowerShot_SX10_IS/

Wehn you read it, look at the review from the Canon Powershot G10 http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Canon_PowerShot_G10/ and you will see how much the SX10 and the G10 are siblings.

After telling the people in the forum at dpreview about this fine review, dpreview banned me for doing just that.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

have it your way

For my taste the pictures from the SX10 are too soft and lack a bit the color vibrance in some pictures. But since I live where the sun does shine on a mostly clear sky for 11 months my light is different from where you might do you major shooting.

There is the thing with the my colors.
Never used it on the S2, in fact I never used the S2 much. I had one of the first ones to come out but my trusty Canon A60 with 2 mp was mostly in my pocket. And that is the thing with the cameras. When I had my SLR with all the lenses and tripod and flash and filters and the pneumatic remote control etc. I only took her out for photo shooting.

The A60 I had often in my pocket and could do much snapshots. Here a few from Benidorm, Spain.

on the floor outside of a store

The S2 was used for tele and video shots and when I went out for photo shootings. The small screen was always something what held me back using her.

My A60 was replaced in 2007 with another Ricoh camera, because she was pocket size had 7x zoom and a nice 2.7" screen what could be used above the head or below the waist and was still viewable in bright sunlight and not to forget the 28mm wide angle. I tested the Ricoh R6 in depth and she is still my main camera. More info see my Picasa Web Album.

Now lets go back to the topic, the S2 already had my colors and you could adjust sharpness, contrast and saturation also red, green, blue and skin tone. So now the SX10 is set to sharpness +2 and saturation +1, lets see if you can spot a difference.

these two you can enlarge to compare

Yes, I know they are twisted but please concentrate on the difference, not on the picture it self.

what´s the thing with i-Contrast

Lets take a look at Dinoland (tm) because we have everything from bright blue sky to dark boding shadows and flesh tones here.

the next 2 images were shot with face detect and the SX10 locked on to the face in the right lower corner.

i-Contrast