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A truly bizarre camera (that I forgot to review)

Started Jun 18, 2017 | User reviews thread
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ProfHankD
ProfHankD Veteran Member • Posts: 9,142
A truly bizarre camera (that I forgot to review)
3

I have five of this odd little PowerShot. I don't know how anybody could think this is a good form factor for a hand-held camera; there really isn't any good way to hold it and I have a lot of fun challenging innocent folks to find the mechanical shutter button (which is pushing the ring around the lens up or down). It's simply a terrible design.

So, why did I buy 5 of them? Because it's a great design for a camera built-into something: a small form with nothing but a tilting touch-sensitive LCD exposed on the back, programmable and easy to sync using CHDK, supports powerful remote control via CHDKPTP, capable of up to 240FPS video (at low resolution), and cheap because nobody likes it.

The 5 copies I have are really 4 for the FourSee multicamera I built and 1 as a spare:

IQ overall is decent, but not better for stills than $80 CCD-based PowerShots. The big advantage here is that the 12MP CMOS sensor allows faster/higher-resolution video. It has wifi support that isn't very good but can be used to get images off the camera (unfortunately it uses microSD, which means you can't get better wifi support by sticking a FlashAir SD card in it).

In sum, it's excellent for this kind of camera array use or other uses where it is embedded in some other device (which I counted as "studio" in the detailed scoring), but terrible for "normal" uses. There are still some N variants around, but they are not CHDK supported... which makes me a little sad, because that's really all these are good for, and they were uniquely good for that. Well, ok, it's also good for social photography where you can have endless fun with folks trying to find the shutter button.

 ProfHankD's gear list:ProfHankD's gear list
Canon PowerShot SX530 Olympus TG-860 Sony a7R II Canon EOS 5D Mark IV Sony a6500 +32 more
Canon PowerShot N
12 megapixels • 2.8 screen • 28 – 224 mm (8×)
Announced: Jan 7, 2013
ProfHankD's score
3.0
Average community score
4.0
bad for good for
Kids / pets
bad
Action / sports
acceptable
Landscapes / scenery
awful
Portraits
bad
Low light (without flash)
acceptable
Flash photography (social)
good
Studio / still life
great
= community average
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