SX60 & SX50 Stuffed Toy Samples.

Ken53 wrote:

lizardi wrote:

Ken53 wrote:

lizardi wrote:

I'm jumping into water way over my head here, since I'm a birder who photographs birds, not a photographer who does. I've been lurking for awhile now, trying to figure out what the heck I've been doing wrong with the TWO!!! SX60's I've bought and returned. I've been using an SX50 almost mindlessly with good results, and just can't believe Canon released the new camera, that to my inexperienced eye seems woefully inferior to it's predecessor.

I've spent hours upon hours trying to test the SX60's IS, which I believe is at the heart of it's poor performance in "real life." Unfortunately, I don't have the equipment or experience to do tests in a fashion that meets the expectations of the pixel peepers out there. That being said, I don't need to pixel peep to know that the SX60 is capable of equaling or bettering the performance of the SX50 at short distances....settings might vary a little, and I fooled with custom color to try to even out distracting differences between the two cameras, but this handheld test at 15 ft. proved the point to me; https://www.flickr.com/photos/127980272@N06/sets/72157648866591940/

The results at 25 ft are very different though, and more accurately reflect the differences I saw between the cameras when I compared them in the field; https://www.flickr.com/photos/127980272@N06/sets/72157646944187254/

Ken, I hope I didn't hijack your thread. I felt the need to contribute to the discussion of the SX60, but didn't think my observations merited a thread of their own.

Liz

I just had a few minutes spare time to look at the heron shots. The SX60 focused behind the heron. The weeds in the background are sharp.

Hope this helps some.

Ken

Thanks, Ken. To what would you attribute the mis-focusing?

Liz

Many things can cause it. Long telephoto lenses or more prone to missing their target for focusing. Think of it the same as shooting a rifle. Care and practice.

You can make your focus square smaller. This will help concentrate the focus to a smaller point. It then will be less likely to see the background.

A camera's auto focus is not a guaranteed success every time, especially with long zooms. Even $15,000 lenses miss their focus target at times. Low light makes things worse.

In your case, I would guess that the heron was a skinny target and the lighting was not giving you enough edge contrast on it. The weeds were also in your large focus square, and was showing more contrast. The weeds were easier to lock on to then the heron.

Ken

Here's the thing, though. The SX50 was focusing just fine...on the same bird. If you have a few more minutes to take another look, I put together a second folder that hopefully makes this clearer (the folder you looked at was assembled for a group of birders who knew I was A/B'ing the two cameras. https://www.flickr.com/photos/127980272@N06/sets/72157646976403934/ The first 5 images were taken with the SX50, the rest with the SX60. Had the cameras in continuous shoot, so I omitted duplicates.

BTW, I use as small a focus square as the camera will allow me to. I have to admit though, with the SX60 I found it nearly impossible to keep it on the subject without engaging the Frame Assist Lock. I've never had to use that feature on the SX50, which leads me to believe there's a significant IS problem with the SX60 that may be contributing to it's poor performance at long focal lengths, especially at long distances.