Canon PowerShot SX1 IS

Opinion: I tested this cameras a cheap alternative to nowadays models. On paper there aren´t so much improvements on nowadays cameras.

The SX1 works with normal batteries, that´s fine I think. No rip-off with special Li-Ion packs with chips. You can get spares everywhere in the world. Only downsinde is that it is pretty heavy with 4 Mignon batteries.

The image quality is however a disappointment. Even at base ISO the pics show ugly noise artifacts. They lack some crispness and look like muddy cr@p. Not to talk about higher ISOs, they are pretty unusable. Even at sunny days this camera fails to produce some decent pics. Compared to pics of the S5 I owned sometimes ago they look worse and have less details even with 2MP more. RAW mode will not help.

A comment about the movie mode, the good one first, the camera beats todays entry level camcorders and still cameras in some aspects. The vids look pretty good in good light, sharp and detailled and smooth, although rolling shutter is a problem when panning even slowly. Sound quality is good, however this camera is pretty prone to wind noise and the wind noise reduction setting isn´t helping.
A downside is that this camera eats memory as crazy. A data rate around 41MB/s is a pretty wase of memory. Especially when you see the fact that some cameras with AVCHD compression produce better looking files with 17MB/s. You can record around 48 mins on a 16GB card.
The movies aren´t so good in low light, noise takes over and turns them into a garbling noisy mass, and because it seems that there is a limit at ISO1600 for them like in foto-mode the camera only records darkness and noise when the lux goes too low.