Re: Tom Verrinder Re: SX50 vs. SX60 - My thoughts. What About SX70 Thoughts?
Tom Verrinder wrote:
John McCormack wrote:
Wow. Are you sure you didn't get a bad copy of the SX70? We see so many good images from posters in this thread it makes me suspicious of the build quality of your particular camera. Have you done targeting tests at various apertures and focal lengths?
One of the easiest birds to photograph at this time of year in our neck of the woods are immature Swainson's Hawks. They are slow-moving and fairly tolerant of close human proximity. This guy was sitting completely still on a fence post 20 feet from the car, which was turned off. I took about 100 photographs of him, all using the RAW setting, before he flew away.
I've attached two JPEG's, one of which was produced by DPP with absolutely no editing and the second which was sharpened in DPP and edited for cover, exposure, levels, and a final late sharpening in Paint.net.
For such a big, stationary target, I would have expected much, much greater quality than this, and would have achieved that quality with the SX 50.
The only technical drawbacks that I can see to this picture is that it was shot at ISO 200 - which nevertheless should have produced a good image.


The second, processed version looks good for an image shot with a small sensor.
I process all of my images in the same manner as you described. When walking or biking I take the tiny, tiny (compared to the SX70 HS) Sony HX80 (30X zoom, 1/2.3 sensor).

It's not a birding camera by any means but the results in good light are okay. To wit:


I may give the SX70 a chance to prove its mettle. Returns are easy enough...