It’s finally happening, the PowerShot SX70 HS is next to be announced

#21
Could be good - no - great. How about a nice 1" sensor, say 24 - 600 f2.4 - f4.5, 24 fps, IS, ND filter, macro mode, water resistant, not too heavy. I have not used video on any camera for years so do not have any idea what specs would be marketable these days. Somewhere about the $2k region.
 
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#22
blackcoffee17 said:
Are you really comparing a phone with a fixed 28mm ish lens with a superzoom? That's like saying: Why they manufacture buses anymore because they are cars these days which are smaller, faster and can take you anywhere just like a bus.
Click to expand...
It’s even worse than that. The offender should be sentenced to taking a head shot of a hungry lion while on safari.
 
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#23
to me, a large fist-sized camera with a tiny 1/2.3" or 1/1.7" sensor does not make much sense. a very long but slow tele zoom does not help the case either.

looking at the obama shot posted - yes, ok it's a "long distance headshot" of Obama ... but so what? no context of the event attended and official white house portraits are better. no disrespect intended, but "low (technical) quality" long tele shots are not my thing.

as far as wildlife or small critters go, i doubt whether a Canon SX type bridge camera really is a good tool in terms of AF performance.
to me, an EOS M50 with EF-M 55-200 is a much more sensible choice. not much bigger. if i dont get a shot with 320mm eq. FOV, it is usually not worth it.

ps: i don't go near hungry lions, grumpy grizzly bears, half-submerged crocodiles, angry buffalo or mad baboons. neither with a cameraphone nor with a bridge cam. ;-)
 
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#24
long reach needs lot of opening (this is why astronomy equipment can cost billions of $). to further compare with astronomy, they combine the highest opening affordable with the densest sensor possible, by far oversampling the diffraction limit. This is when pure technical esolution counts, the effort for extracting it in post prozessing is irrelevant and aestetics not matters. The price to be paied is shooting black and white normally, and unsharp looking pictures.

None of these astronomy instruments are zooms, nor can they (auto)focus. Asking a superzoom to be a zoom, have autofocus, shoot in color and be cheap is i huge compromise.

A SX 60 has 250mm focal lenght with f6.5, this means 38mm opening, this is a slow opening, which helps at correcting the abberationns, with this dense sensor it's well above the diffraction limit, which means it's resolution will be mostly diffraction limited, which means it does what a 38mm opeening at best can to. At best or quite close to it. At this magnification, getting a shot without motion blur is VERY challenging, the best possible IS system is deciding the game.

There is no phone camera with 38mm opening, so they have possibly 2.5mm opening. The SX then collects maybe 230x more light than a phone, while a 600mm f4 lens collects 16x more light than the SX, at maybe 25x the price.

What's the conclusion:

- The SX is closer to a 600mmF4 system than to a phone
- The SX (or similar product) delivers the best resolution per $ of any camera class for distant objects
- of course, for taking 28mm pics, it's a waste of glass, a phone does this better (has more opening with similar sensor size)
- it is difficult to take good pics with it, so the results may be disapointing, depending on the expectations, the conditions and the user's skills. This because it's overspeced in a physical way (promising higher resolution than is physically possible), which of course is not written in the specs and the typical buyed is not aware of.

Personally i do not own such a camera and will not buy one, i am quite confident my 5d3 with a 100-400ii does better in any case, but for much higher costs. If more reach is needed, i will buy a aps-c camera which can do f8 focusing and use the 1.4 extender. This way i get the max out of this lens (diffraction limit), which has 70mm opening
 
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#25
fullstop said:
to me, a large fist-sized camera with a tiny 1/2.3" or 1/1.7" sensor does not make much sense. a very long but slow tele zoom does not help the case either.

looking at the obama shot posted - yes, ok it's a "long distance headshot" of Obama ... but so what? no context of the event attended and official white house portraits are better. no disrespect intended, but "low (technical) quality" long tele shots are not my thing.

as far as wildlife or small critters go, i doubt whether a Canon SX type bridge camera really is a good tool in terms of AF performance.
to me, an EOS M50 with EF-M 55-200 is a much more sensible choice. not much bigger. if i dont get a shot with 320mm eq. FOV, it is usually not worth it.

ps: i don't go near hungry lions, grumpy grizzly bears, half-submerged crocodiles, angry buffalo or mad baboons. neither with a cameraphone nor with a bridge cam. ;-)
Click to expand...

Is it true that you are AvTvM under a new alias?
 
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#26
hendrik-sg said:
long reach needs lot of opening (this is why astronomy equipment can cost billions of $). to further compare with astronomy, they combine the highest opening affordable with the densest sensor possible, by far oversampling the diffraction limit. This is when pure technical esolution counts, the effort for extracting it in post prozessing is irrelevant and aestetics not matters. The price to be paied is shooting black and white normally, and unsharp looking pictures.

None of these astronomy instruments are zooms, nor can they (auto)focus. Asking a superzoom to be a zoom, have autofocus, shoot in color and be cheap is i huge compromise.

A SX 60 has 250mm focal lenght with f6.5, this means 38mm opening, this is a slow opening, which helps at correcting the abberationns, with this dense sensor it's well above the diffraction limit, which means it's resolution will be mostly diffraction limited, which means it does what a 38mm opeening at best can to. At best or quite close to it. At this magnification, getting a shot without motion blur is VERY challenging, the best possible IS system is deciding the game.

There is no phone camera with 38mm opening, so they have possibly 2.5mm opening. The SX then collects maybe 230x more light than a phone, while a 600mm f4 lens collects 16x more light than the SX, at maybe 25x the price.

What's the conclusion:

- The SX is closer to a 600mmF4 system than to a phone
- The SX (or similar product) delivers the best resolution per $ of any camera class for distant objects
- of course, for taking 28mm pics, it's a waste of glass, a phone does this better (has more opening with similar sensor size)
- it is difficult to take good pics with it, so the results may be disapointing, depending on the expectations, the conditions and the user's skills. This because it's overspeced in a physical way (promising higher resolution than is physically possible), which of course is not written in the specs and the typical buyed is not aware of.

Personally i do not own such a camera and will not buy one, i am quite confident my 5d3 with a 100-400ii does better in any case, but for much higher costs. If more reach is needed, i will buy a aps-c camera which can do f8 focusing and use the 1.4 extender. This way i get the max out of this lens (diffraction limit), which has 70mm opening
Click to expand...

Diffraction limitation is a problem with all the 1/2.3" sensor superzooms. The biggest joke is the Nikon P1000 whose aperture is 3.5x the DLA at full zoom. If you want a decent image, a 20 mpx 1" sensor 600mm FF equivalent (i.e. 220mm focal length) with an f/4 lens matches the DLA to the aperture. Those f/4 bridge cameras are as big as a bulky DSLR.
 
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#27
fullstop said:
to me, a large fist-sized camera with a tiny 1/2.3" or 1/1.7" sensor does not make much sense. a very long but slow tele zoom does not help the case either.

looking at the obama shot posted - yes, ok it's a "long distance headshot" of Obama ... but so what? no context of the event attended and official white house portraits are better. no disrespect intended, but "low (technical) quality" long tele shots are not my thing.

as far as wildlife or small critters go, i doubt whether a Canon SX type bridge camera really is a good tool in terms of AF performance.
to me, an EOS M50 with EF-M 55-200 is a much more sensible choice. not much bigger. if i dont get a shot with 320mm eq. FOV, it is usually not worth it.

ps: i don't go near hungry lions, grumpy grizzly bears, half-submerged crocodiles, angry buffalo or mad baboons. neither with a cameraphone nor with a bridge cam. ;-)
Click to expand...
To answer your points.
1. Official White House Portraits are better but they are not my memento of the event.
2. Here's another memento of the event with sufficient information of the context. It's not bad for an out of camera jpeg under low tungsten lighting.
3. 320mm FOV is usually far too narrow for me - I rarely go below 400mm and am usually at 560-800mm for bird and nature photography, and my M5 at 250mm is too low resolution.
By the way, he gave a great speech - very inspiring.
IMG_0720.jpg
 
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#28
fullstop said:
to me, a large fist-sized camera with a tiny 1/2.3" or 1/1.7" sensor does not make much sense. a very long but slow tele zoom does not help the case either.

looking at the obama shot posted - yes, ok it's a "long distance headshot" of Obama ... but so what? no context of the event attended and official white house portraits are better. no disrespect intended, but "low (technical) quality" long tele shots are not my thing.

as far as wildlife or small critters go, i doubt whether a Canon SX type bridge camera really is a good tool in terms of AF performance.
to me, an EOS M50 with EF-M 55-200 is a much more sensible choice. not much bigger. if i dont get a shot with 320mm eq. FOV, it is usually not worth it.

ps: i don't go near hungry lions, grumpy grizzly bears, half-submerged crocodiles, angry buffalo or mad baboons. neither with a cameraphone nor with a bridge cam. ;-)
Click to expand...

Many people use these kind of cameras because they simply don't need medium format quality. And mostly shoot static subject, like a bird on a branch. These cameras are also a good documenting tool, basically a binocular with a camera.

The 55-200 lens you mentioned is not a great lens and 300mm equivalent is still very far from 1000+ mm this camera will likely have. The SX60 have 1300mm equivalent lens. You will need heavy crop to reach 1000mm, ending with a 2-3MP image. So i'm sure that at those focal lengths your 2MP M5 image will have a lot less details than a 16-20MP image from this camera in decent light at least.


It's just the way you said it: I don't have a use for it so who would even buy this? :)
 
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#30
I believe these are great cameras for people who want more than a regular point and shoot but don't want to be bothered with an interchangeable lens camera. I have personally recommended the SX60 to multiple people who are not photographers, but just want a camera to take with to the Kruger or other game reserves here in South Africa. This camera shines in this case where it is shot at mostly low ISO, wide open and the people just want memories of their trip. The people that use these cameras also don't seem to ever zoom in to 100% when reviewing their images which are generally shot in JPEG.

I have to say that when fully extended out to 1365mm equivalent and still not quite filling the frame it can get comparable photos (maybe even better, I would need to do some real testing) to either my 1Dx2 or 7D2 with my 100-400 with extender after cropping. When you consider the absolutely massive difference in cost between these setups it is crazy. Using the EFs 55 - 250 on my 7D2 doesn't come anywhere even close so I doubt an EOS m is going to do any better.

As a further point I make at least 2 - 3 trips a year to Kruger National Park and I definitely see significantly more bridge cameras than I see interchangeable lens cameras and when you look at interchangeable lens cameras entry level DSLR's are again by far the majority. I don't recall seeing more than a couple of mirror-less interchangeable lens bodies over the past 5 years.

Now I am not trying to say that my experience is an accurate representation of the camera market but I think the part of the market that I have experienced is enough to warrant Canon making the camera. Personally I have a suspicion that Canon may end up selling significantly more of an SX60 successor than the EOS R for example.

Anyway I think this is great news and I think it will be great to see where Canon is able to improve on the SX60.
 
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#33
Memirsbrunnr said:
I would like to see something competing in extreme range to the nikon p1000 with its 3000 mm reach-- like to have a portable telescope that can make pictures
Click to expand...
The P1000 is a range too far. Its f-number is 3.5x the diffraction limited aperture fully extended and so has no resolution advantage at a supposed FF equivalent of 3000mm than at more moderate range. Indeed as predicted in CR, the ePhotozine review https://www.ephotozine.com/article/nikon-coolpix-p1000-review-32665 concludes: "However, this comes with a number of unavoidable issues which includes the size and weight of the camera, needing a tripod for anything over 2000mm and a rather poor battery life." and "Image quality beyond 2000mm deteriorates". The SX50-70 models are much more practical and effective.
 
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#34
AlanF said:
The P1000 is a range too far. Its f-number is 3.5x the diffraction limited aperture fully extended and so has no resolution advantage at a supposed FF equivalent of 3000mm than at more moderate range. Indeed as predicted in CR, the ePhotozine review https://www.ephotozine.com/article/nikon-coolpix-p1000-review-32665 concludes: "However, this comes with a number of unavoidable issues which includes the size and weight of the camera, needing a tripod for anything over 2000mm and a rather poor battery life." and "Image quality beyond 2000mm deteriorates". The SX50-70 models are much more practical and effective.
Click to expand...
I know and I accept
 
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#35
Memirsbrunnr said:
I know and I accept
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Thanks. The P1000 is a real con. It's about the same size as the Panasonic FZ2000 and Sony RX10 III 24-600mm FF-equivalents (but cheaper than the RX10IV) but they have superb f/4 lenses to go with the larger 1" sensor, and are much, much better. The SX70 is a much more convenient size. One of my birding friends takes an SX60 with him wherever he goes daily as it is small and he gets some very nice shots as well as a running record of his sightings.
 
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#36
Memirsbrunnr said:
I would like to see something competing in extreme range to the nikon p1000 with its 3000 mm reach-- like to have a portable telescope that can make pictures
Click to expand...
I think this is where I see advantage in this sort of camera. I don't have a long range set-up at the moment (frankly I wouldn't use it enough to justify proper lenses) but I do occasionally have a use, and something reasonably priced with decent image quality (and raw capture to eke it out) may eventually tempt me. I was thinking about a new APSC body for the 1.6x push on existing lenses, but I'm now tempted by the EOS R so yet another body would seem excessive. Nor can I really justify a Sony RX10, price wise v use.
 
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#37
Jethro said:
I think this is where I see advantage in this sort of camera. I don't have a long range set-up at the moment (frankly I wouldn't use it enough to justify proper lenses) but I do occasionally have a use, and something reasonably priced with decent image quality (and raw capture to eke it out) may eventually tempt me. I was thinking about a new APSC body for the 1.6x push on existing lenses, but I'm now tempted by the EOS R so yet another body would seem excessive. Nor can I really justify a Sony RX10, price wise v use.
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If you want something reasonably priced with decent image quality and RAW with good range for occasional use, get an SX60HS - they are a steal at current pricing.
 
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#38
fullstop said:
to me, a large fist-sized camera with a tiny 1/2.3" or 1/1.7" sensor does not make much sense. a very long but slow tele zoom does not help the case either.

looking at the obama shot posted - yes, ok it's a "long distance headshot" of Obama ... but so what? no context of the event attended and official white house portraits are better ;-)
Click to expand...
By that reasoning why bother taking your own photos of anything that is available from another source? I've taken thousands of photos that I could have just bought some postcards of or a few high quality prints. I guess I've been wasting my time and money.
 
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#39
Adelino said:
By that reasoning why bother taking your own photos of anything that is available from another source? I've taken thousands of photos that I could have just bought some postcards of or a few high quality prints. I guess I've been wasting my time and money.
Click to expand...

Very true. I am often asking myself this very question. Many days i have no valid answer. But some days i manage to capture or create an image I really like and could not have bought. And sometimes even other people value them.

So yes, you are right, most imaginable and unimaginable images are not created yet. Many special moments are worth being recorded to help ourselves and others to remember them.
 
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#40
6a00d8341c588553ef0148c760a85b970c-pi.png
 
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