I’m relatively new to the photography world, having used the Canon G12 for the past couple of years. The G12 is great for travel and outdoor adventures, but marginal for sports/action shots. I considered a full upgrade to a good DSLR and a couple of telephotos, but it’s hard to justify the expense for basically a bunch of snapshots and Facebook posts. Most importantly, the SX50 is in my price range.
As a G12 user, the SX 50 requires almost no learning curve. My third-party flash works fine. One off-shoe cord works but another does not. There are a couple of new features, including the HQ burst feature is really cool for sports if you have it set up and see the play developing. The handheld night scene is intriguing. I haven’t seen much on-line discussion of this feature, but my sense is that it is a cousin of HDR , four quick bracketed shots are merged into one image. Reportedly good for low light scenes when a flash is not an option.
In a limited number of side-by-side comparisons of jpg shots, the G12 is somewhat better with daytime landscape, but you really have to look for the differences. For the sports action photos, however, the SX 50 is great. Continuous shooting is quicker than the G12 and despite a slower lens, gets nice photos inside school gyms.
Problems:
The G12 case and dials feel solid like a high-end camera. By comparison, the SX50 feels less solid (more plastic). I also am sorry to lose the exposure compensation and ISO dials that are part of the G12. The SX 50 shots RAW, but I’m bummed to discover that Adobe Photoshop CS5 does not support RAW conversion for newer cameras. This adds a new time-consuming step in my workflow for RAW images.