Note: all the pictures featured in my blog from My Morning Walk post onwards were taken with the Canon PowerShot SX120IS.
Here’s what you’ll find when you open the SX120IS box:
- The SX120IS
- 2 AA-size alkaline batteries
- A 128MB SD memory card
- A camera to PC interface cable
- A camera to TV AV cable
- Wrist strap
- Getting Started Guide
- Digital Camera solutions CD
- Warranty card
The folks at the local Canon store here were kind enough to give me an 8GB SDHC memory card, which has enough storage for close to 3,000 pictures and an hour of video, plus a Canon soft pouch for storing the camera. The icing on the cake was a free extended 2-year warranty from Canon, which means that now my SX120IS has a warranty lasting 3 years! Beat that.
The detailed instruction manual is in Adobe PDF format on the CD (Canon is being environment-friendly here) so you’ll have to view it on your computer or print out a hard copy yourself. Canon’s Zoom Browser software is also included, but I didn’t feel the need to install it as I’ve already got my own picture viewing/editing software installed. Needless to say the camera is instantly detected on connection to your computer if you’re using Windows XP or Vista.
You can get about 100 shots using alkaline batteries, and over 300 using NiMH rechargeables. The camera doesn’t have a viewfinder, so all viewing has to be done with the 3” LCD monitor screen, which is bright and sharp. However, trying to view this in bright sunlight outdoors is difficult, so in a sense I do miss having a viewfinder. The SX120IS starts up in less than 2 seconds, ready to take pictures immediately.
A plethora of shooting modes are available to the user:
- Manual
- Aperture priority
- Shutter priority
- Program
- Auto
- Easy
- Portrait
- Landscape
- Night snapshot
- Kids and Pets
- Indoor
- Scene Mode (which has sub-modes)
- Movie
My preferred mode is Auto, because all you do is point the camera, zoom, and shoot. Press the shutter button halfway to focus, and all the way to shoot. The camera will beep twice and the back indicator will light green. If the indicator lights orange and “Raise the flash” appears on the LCD, you’ll have to raise the flash yourself. That’s right, this is one of the few quirks of the SX120IS—the flash unit does not automatically pop up (is Canon trying to go retro here?) I can live with this, but some people might find this a wee bit annoying. And it goes without saying that you’ve got to lower the flash yourself after you’re done with it. Another thing I’ve noticed in Auto mode is that you can’t use the flash for fill-in or force it to fire if the camera deems it unnecessary. If you want to force the flash to fire or fill-in you’ll have to use Program mode.
While on the subject of flash, I’ve noticed that compared to my A510 PowerShot, the flash on the SX120IS has a more subtle effect. In other words, flash shots tend to be more natural, in stark contrast to the A510 which tends to give a full burst of flash resulting in shots where every spot and blemish on faces can be easily seen. You can adjust the flash exposure compensation in Program mode, and the flash output can be adjusted in Manual mode. Personally I just leave it to the camera and it comes out with good results most of the time.
Controls on the camera are well-placed—the On/Off button, mode dial, shutter release and zoom buttons are on top and have a solid feel to them. I like the fact that the Auto mode position is colored green and Easy mode is red. Makes it very easy for me to see which mode I’ve set without putting on my reading glasses. There’s also a mono microphone, a speaker, and a lamp for the self-timer, AF assist beam, and red-eye reduction.
On the back from the top we have the Playback button, buttons for face detection and single erase/exposure compensation, the rotary control dial with ISO, Flash, Macro/Manual Focus and Self-Timer, finishing up with the Display and Menu buttons at the bottom. The rotary dial is a breeze to use and while it doesn’t have any clicks, picture icons appear on the LCD screen when you’re using it.
Using the camera will be covered in Part 3.
Tags: camera, Canon, Powershot, SX120IS
I’m glad you’re enjoying your camera. My Canon actually came with a printed manual. I was really surprised…but it has come in handy a few times.
I don’t use their editing software either. Check out http://www.picnik.com for some nice free online photo editing and effects.
My old Canon PowerShot A510 came with a printed manual as well but I guess Canon is trying to help save trees nowadays. Thanks for the link to picknik, some nice free photo editing there!