An excellent AA battery P&S with full manual controls

I bought my SX160IS last year for $50 , in excellent, almost unused condition.

Canon needs to still make this model.  I know of no other camera, for the price, that a person could learn the essentials of photography with that's better than the SX160IS.

It's a small sensor camera.  But it's a good small sensor camera, with an excellent set of full manual controls, and loads of options in the menus, that make using the camera a pleasure.  The photos are excellent, for it's sensor size.  The movie capability is very good.

The only downside is this camera is slow, but the beginner or casual user won't know that until they upgrade to a DSLR or MFT  camera.  For the beginner, or the casual user, it's plenty fast enough.

There is a lot to be said good about a consumer camera using two AA batteries.  The casual user might not get their camera out for a year and then the lithium batteries are ran down.  A four pack of good NiMH rechargeable batteries, sold everywhere, is essential to get the most out of one of these great consumer point and shoot cameras.

Canon has gone on to make similar sized cameras with CMOS sensors and WiFi and lots of whiz bangs and geegaws.  But  Canon ought to keep this model in their lineup for the casual user, photography student, and beginner that just wants a capable, cheap camera that gets the job done.

What will it do that a cell phone won't?

Thanks for the tip. It would be a good camera for a child's birthday gift.

Mark B. wrote:

HRC2016 wrote:

What will it do that a cell phone won't?

18x optical zoom

doesn't need to be charged every night

larger sensor (1/2.3") than most cell phones

And,,,you have a real camera,,,, with full control of ISO, aperture, and shutter speed.

You look like a real photographer, with a real camera, instead of somebody with a smartphone taking photos.

There are art filters galore built into the Powershot SX series cameras, too.

With the addition of a cheap Flash Air SD card, which has a wireless LAN router built inot the card, these old Canon Powershot SX series cameras become capable of wireless transfer of full size photos to your computer or smartphone.

And for videos, there is no comparison whatsoever, the real camera just blows the smartphone away.

The only advantages the smartphone has over the SX Powershot series is the newer smartphones have a faster lens, and it's easier to post photos on social media using the smartphone, although the Flash Air SD cards remove a lot of the wireless advantages of the smartphone.

To persuade a customer to carry around a camera instead of a smartphone, the camera makers have had to deliver a very competent camera at a reasonable price for a long time, now.

Humansvillian wrote:

And,,,you have a real camera,,,, with full control of ISO, aperture, and shutter speed.

aperture... when you start with a f/3.5-5.9 lens and a 1/2.3" sensor, I don't think it matter.

On a smartphone you do have complete control over sensitivity and shitter speed.

0lf wrote:

Humansvillian wrote:

And,,,you have a real camera,,,, with full control of ISO, aperture, and shutter speed.

aperture... when you start with a f/3.5-5.9 lens and a 1/2.3" sensor, I don't think it matter.

On a smartphone you do have complete control over sensitivity and shitter speed.

These cameras were t for experienced enthusiasts.

But they were capable of the beginner sitting down with a book and his camera has all the same controls as a DSLR.  The typical owner doesn't know what aperture even is  as a beginner.

With this camera, I learned the Rule of Sunny 16.

I learned to set the shutter speed at 1/500 to freeze motion.

And I learned how to set the aperture at 3.5 to get defocused backgrounds.

Amd when I wanted a smart camera like my smartphone, set it on Program or Auto or Guide and it worked great.

We need new photography enthusiasts, and the SX130-160 series were the best learner cameras in recent times.

Canon should reissue a similar AA battery model, with Wifi and maybe a faster lens, but for the type f3.5 isn't all that slow.

New, these cameras didn't cost what one fast lens does for a DSLR.

Yet they had DSLR control sets.

Beginners need a starter camera, and these were great.

I started with an FZ18, (similar sensor size and aperture couple, even more DSLResque handling). My experience :

Humansvillian wrote:

These cameras were t for experienced enthusiasts.

But they were capable of the beginner sitting down with a book and his camera has all the same controls as a DSLR. The typical owner doesn't know what aperture even is as a beginner.

The major effects of closing aperture on these cameras is noise with hight ISO and diffraction, so you learn to keep the aperture wide open

And I learned how to set the aperture at 3.5 to get defocused backgrounds.

defocused background is associated with "you zoom as much as possible" or with macro, not with aperture. At 5mm FL and ƒ/3.5 the hyperfocal is estimated at 1,5m. That means that all from 0.75m to infinity is sharp enough at max aperture. In fact, a smartphone likely have better background defocus ability than the Sx160 at wide angle.

Amd when I wanted a smart camera like my smartphone, set it on Program or Auto or Guide and it worked great.

Smartphones are better on auto. smarter. With auto multi frame NR, auto multi frame HDR that look natural instead of heavily tone mapped, better white balance, better colors...

We need new photography enthusiasts, and the SX130-160 series were the best learner cameras in recent times.

Just like this camera, smartphones allow you to learn composition, exposure, shutter speed. They also allow you to shoot raw, process the image on camera and share it... IMHO it seems much better to create enthusiasm and express creativity.

Canon should reissue a similar AA battery model, with Wifi and maybe a faster lens, but for the type f3.5 isn't all that slow.

New, these cameras didn't cost what one fast lens does for a DSLR.

Now that smartphones have destroyed the low end P&S market, the price balance as shifted a lot.

Yet they had DSLR control sets.

which can be emulated on a smartphone app for less than 10$

Beginners need a starter camera, and these were great.

But smartphone are better for this. The only benefit of these cameras is zoom.

If the beginner would actually download some kind of software to get his smartphone to have PASM controls and learn photography, then what a wonderful world it would be.

But I had a smartphone for years, and all I did was point and shoot it, until curiosity led me to figure out what all those PASM things were on top of the dial of my Canon point and shoot.

Within a month, I'd bought a second hand Canon EOS 350D camera, and at that point I realized how slow my Canon SX 150 IS was.  A month or so after that, my daughter and I ware at our farm, and I gave her the Canon 350D, and started using my Oly PL1 myself. Now I have a Oly P3 and I"m having a ball, and my daughter actually makes a few dollars taking photos with her decade old DSLR, and has a great time doing it.

I've bought two more  PL1's and given them to a couple of more of my kids, too.  I've bought several lenses, and now I know what an f stop, aperture, exposure compensation, shutter speed, and ISO are, but I didn't before I caught the photography addiction from the Powershot.

We could have done all that with smartphones, but we didn't.

We still use our smartphones, when we don't have a real camera on us, and I occasionally still use the Canon SX 150 IS and the replacement Canon SX 160 IS I bought when I dropped the 150 and the shutter cover and battery door sprung (although it still works).

It's my opinion that Canon ought to have a model like tho old Poweshot SX 100 IS series that isn't so much about image quality or a fast lens, as it was about having AA batteries, a good set of controls, deep menus, and cheap enough to buy on a whim, or for an instructor of a photography class to approve as a class camera.

After a beginner learns photography on a real camera, then they might start using their smartphone for actual amateur photography.

The problem is getting people interested in amateur photography, instead of just pointing and clicking, like I did for fifty years before I bought my first Powershot SX 100 IS series camera.

Humansvillian wrote:

If the beginner would actually download some kind of software to get his smartphone to have PASM controls and learn photography, then what a wonderful world it would be.

But I had a smartphone for years, and all I did was point and shoot it, until curiosity led me to figure out what all those PASM things were on top of the dial of my Canon point and shoot.

Do you realize that the very large majority of user of P&S with PASM use it on auto ?

Within a month, I'd bought a second hand Canon EOS 350D camera, and at that point I realized how slow my Canon SX 150 IS was. A month or so after that, my daughter and I ware at our farm, and I gave her the Canon 350D, and started using my Oly PL1 myself. Now I have a Oly P3 and I"m having a ball, and my daughter actually makes a few dollars taking photos with her decade old DSLR, and has a great time doing it.

I've bought two more PL1's and given them to a couple of more of my kids, too. I've bought several lenses, and now I know what an f stop, aperture, exposure compensation, shutter speed, and ISO are, but I didn't before I caught the photography addiction from the Powershot.

We could have done all that with smartphones, but we didn't.

Looks like you have done all that with some canon and olympus ILC, not the SX150/160

We had a Nikon D3000 that we never used, before the PASM dial on the Canon SX150IS inspired me to learn what all that PASM business onnthe dial was about.

The Nikon DSLR would still be in a drawer, and we'd have not had 4 MFT cameras, if I hadn't taken up the photography habit.

And if a casual user wants to use his cheap point and shoot on Auto,,,that's good.

These are not for pros.  They are for starter cameras.

Humansvillian wrote:

We had a Nikon D3000 that we never used, before the PASM dial on the Canon SX150IS inspired me to learn what all that PASM business onnthe dial was about.

The Nikon DSLR would still be in a drawer, and we'd have not had 4 MFT cameras, if I hadn't taken up the photography habit.

And if a casual user wants to use his cheap point and shoot on Auto,,,that's good.

These are not for pros. They are for starter cameras.

Your personal experience does not make a generality. The reality of the market show that people don't want low end P&S anymore, even with PASM. The reality is that even when a camera has PASM, it is often use in auto, and the lower end it is, the more it is use in auto. The reality is that even mid range smartphones have similar photo ability than low end P&S, except for zoom, and today have gained raw support and sharing so are better tools for creativity and to draw interest. The reality is that with such low potential market share, the profitability threshold price is much higher than before.

There is a lot of good reason manufacturer stop making such cameras. They are not relevant anymore.

edit : if we call such cameras P&S and not PASM, it is because A mode and M mode serve no purpose on small sensor with narrow aperture cameras

I don't think that film cameras ever really reached a broad audience until the Canon AE-1 Program came along that had all automatic controls, except for focus.  I have one, and I used it until the little fully automatic point and shoot film cameras came along, and if I ever took the dial off Program, I can't remember it.

Nobody can argue that the sub $200 point and shoot digital cameras are being hammered by smartphones.  That only leaves the high end point and shoots, if this trend continues.

The beauty of a cheap super zoom compact digital camera like the Powershot SX 100 series was that the consumer got into a real, devoted camera that had fuill PASM dial, deep menus, and art filters for not a lot of money.  The buyer could use store brand AA batteries if they wanted.  They probably used the thing on full auto or default program settings as long as they own it.

Newer smart phones have faster lenses, and they are capable cameras.  But the owner of a capable, cheap, PASM dial equipped smart camera like the SX100 series was more likely to attempt to learn what the controls were for, than a smartphone owner that might, maybe, download some art filters.  Using RAW is miles above the beginner's head.  He's already struggling to understand his camera's functions, and RAW is for another level of amateur photographer.

Who's going to buy DSLR's and other expensive enthusiast cameras, if the world looses an entire generation of photography students who think they need a real camera to learn photography?  Isn't it better to have a cheap, capable, starter camera for the raw beginner, that might later on buy a DSLR or other enthusiast camera, than hope smartphone owners quit taking selfies and sending emails of their dogs and cats to friends and learn photography?

Is there a kit lens on a consumer level DSLR today that comes with a faster aperture on the kit lens than about f3.5 on the bottom side?  Maybe, but there aren't many.

Where I think  these Powershot 100 series cameras were valuable was to snag a smartphone owner out of a hundred bucks or so, and for his money he got a super zoom camera, and the potential was there for him to learn the ins and outs of photography by taking a course, either online or in person.  I can't imagine smartphone owners getting all fired up to learn photography, if only a small number of capable point and shoot owners go on to learn something more than to use their camera on Auto or Program.

Canon and Nikon probably still make some kind of full control cameras, but they cost over $200 and take lithium batteries.  The beginner isn't likely to buy them. I think more likely to spend $350  for a new low end consumer DSLR that's going to sit in a drawer because the inexperienced owner is intimidated by all the knobs and geegaws on the camera.

If some camera maker were to make a new AA battery powered superzoom compact, they would have to add WiFi to sell it, today.  A faster lens would be nice, but not necessary.   My argument is the photography worlds needs a simple, cheap, capable camera with a full control set that sells for $100 to get a new generation of photography enthusiasts started on a camera addiction.