Profiling Bulbul, Dove and Shikra with SX60

frank wrote:

Well done Bala, excellent shots.

I am particularly interested in your opinion of the camera's IS system as your images look extremely sharp at full zoom. My concern stems from a few comments from members on this site e.g.

"Image stabilization doesn't seem as good SX50. picture is more jumpier during handhel"

"IS is so much worse, it almost makes handheld unusable, which is a shame. The image dances around in the viewfinder to the point where I get completely frustrated. I have to shoot about 5 shots for everyone that is okay when in zoom mode."

As well as from a comment in the "What digital camera review"

"In practice however, you’ll need to use a tripod when the zoom is fully extended, or at the very least balance or brace the camera against something solid. Trying to shoot handheld at 1365mm is a real challenge, for the simple fact that it’s extremely difficult to keep your faraway subject steady inside the frame"

I assume all your shots were hand held and if so how difficult was it to keep the image steady?

Regards

Frank

Hi Frank,

While I don't own SX50 earlier, hence may not be able to provide my feedback in comparison, below is my opinion on SX60 for it's IS system.

I don't feel any issues with the IS on this camera. In fact, the camera holds the image VERY WELL and no 'jumping' up to it's optical zoom range of 1365mm. Once I zoom past into the digital zoom range, there's some jumping of picture on the EVF, which I see as directly proportional to how far it's from the 1356mm mark. Such jumping, in my opinion, should be something expected at such high zoom and will be common across all cameras in this range. With my short experience with this camera, I'm able to learn holding this camera well, even with digital zoom, and able to produce many keepers. All the pictures on this post are hand held and the close-up pictures on this post are way past the optical zoom range of 1365mm.

SX60 has another feature which Canon claims to assist with IS at high zoom. A second 'Zoom Framing Assist Lock button' on the side of the camera should help to lock the image stabilization onto the center of the frame to compensate for camera movement and make it easier to keep the subject in the frame. I have not tried this feature yet, but I have seen positive comments with this feature from other SX50 users. So this is another feature to explore in terms of IS.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Bala