This Baby Is A Gem

Author's Rating:

Pros: Great zoom, battery life, slr quality

Cons: too bulky for most camera cases

The Bottom Line: 
Beginners and people wanting something professional alike, this camera is great for anybody.

Author's Review
I was on the market for a DSLR...a truly professional camera that oozed elegance and good photography.  What I wasn't on the lookout for was an $800 camera.  After countless nights of eBay searching, bidding, and losses at auctions, I decided to take a look at what Best Buy called "advanced point and shoot cameras."  Amongst the few was a camera called the Canon Powershot SX120..and now, I don't feel as bad that I didn't get an SLR.

The camera offers many features that you can find in higher end cameras, with the ease of point and shoot cameras.  Some of the "higher end" features are the extreme zoom, pop-up flash, clarity, and softness.  The zoom on this baby is crazy.  Seriously, for those of you that like to go sight-seeing or take pictures of things far away, this is definatly the camera for you.  You could go with the Nikon Coolpix L100 (the Nikon version of the SX120) but you wouldn't get the same sharpeness and clarity found in this baby.  The pop-up flash really does come in handy.  For those of you who are point and shoot veterans, you have experienced the frustration from when your camera sets of flash in a perfectly okay light setting.  With a pop-up flash, you don't have that problem.  If you don't want the flash on, then don't flip it up!  Now on to clarity...this camera takes stunning, high quality photos.  If you're not planning on enlaring them that much, then you won't experience much blurriness.  Don't let the 10-megapixel-in-a-market-of-12-megapixel-cameras part scare you.  10 megapixels is more than enough...12 is just a fancy label.  (Remember the days when 5 was extrodinary?!)  As for softness, this camera doesn't super-sharpen everything.  It adds a soft, airbrushed feel to the picture.

Point and shoot simplicity...doesn't it sound great?  With this camera, it is.  It fits in your pocket, and I guarantee you that you can't do that with an SLR.  If also has every type of focus you need, all in one lens.  With an SLR, if you want to zoom then you have to put in a zoom lens.  If you want macro focus, then you need to attatch a macro lens.  With this handy little camera, you can do it all, and more.  Another great thing about it is the auto setting.  It auto focuses, adjusts the light, aperture, shutter speed, and whatever else to get you the perfect snapshot.

Of course, it does have some cons.  Companies have yet to make a camera case for the SX120, so you're stuck making yourself one or using a sock (hehe :P ).  The flash recycle is also kind of slow, but you rarely need it with this camera.  The video quality isn't fantastic, but its still good.