Canon dubs the PowerShot SX210 as the return of the pocket powerhouse but could it be the point and shoot camera that can replace that bulky digital SLR companion of yours?

The Canon Powershot S90, in a marketing standpoint, is said to be the take-me-anywhere-do-anything compact for photography enthusiasts.

The Powershot SX210 sells for £349.00, is the experience of using the compact camera worth its price tag?

THE SPECS AND FEATURES

The Canon SX210 has a 14.1 mega pixel sensor.

It also boats of a 14x optical zoom which means that you can take this tiny super compact camera in, say, a concert and even if you’re far away from the stage you can still zoom in and take a photo of the performer. Plus the size of the SX210 won’t get as much a attention from the concert security organizer, so you really can take this anywhere at any time. In the 35 mm terms the lens can be stabilized at 28-392mm optic.

Another great feature of the Powershot SX210 is that it can go wide-angle to long telephoto. You can do wildlife and zoo photography with this super compact and it gives you the flexibility to re-compose a shot without having to move around much.

The TFT, unusually, is a 16:9 LCD with a diagonal of 3in and 230,000 dots. That wide-angle aspect ratio certainly looks striking, and is useful when employing the SX210 IS’s 720 HD video, but is a bit of wasted space much of the time.

BUILD QUALITY

The build of the Canon SX210 is excellent. It was designed to survive a bit of drop and bumps here and there with is metallised body. The body and the lens size is well balanced.

QUALITY OF IMAGE

There may be some apprehensions to a super compact camera as the quality may not exceed the impression the features state. However with the SX210 test shots come out superb. The hardworking Powershot SX210 lens is sharp both at wide-angle and telephoto focal lengths.

The manual operation available in the Powershot SX210 allows you to shoot in both aperture priority mode and speed mode so you can play with your images.

EXTRA FEATURES

The Powershot SX210 has several creative modes including Fisheye and Miniature Effect.

The Mockeye Fish-eye effect doesn’t alter the lens but it just exaggerates the foreground objects.

The Miniature Effect mimics the effect of a tilt-shift lens, blurring the top and bottom of a shot, making a real-life scene appear as if it had been made in miniature.

ISO CAPABILITIES

The softness of the quality of the photos can be felt at ISO 800 and there is even less control at ISO 1600. In spite this noise isn’t a terrible problem with the Powershot SX210 and you can be assured that it can deliver photos even at low light.

LIKES:

The image quality of the Powershot SX210 is great even on low light shooting. The nicest thing about it is the flexible lens that suits all digital imaging conditions.

DISLIKES:

The price is too hefty and crosses the digital SLR territory, so why not just by an SLR.

VERDICT:

A superb camera that would be more amazing if it were a little bit affordable.