DPReview TV: Canon Powershot Zoom Review

I'd say from the IQ, my Oly 5050, Sony V1 looked much better, both with 5 MP only, back into the heyday. And this was Tech from 2002-2003. Pictures here from the samples looked washed out, fuzzy, unsharp, muted colors, etc...it looks mediocre.

A fine Sunday, good Light.

I’ll buy it from woot when it inevitably goes there on discount. If sports arenas and concerts come back I can imagine this being great to use from the stands.

Honestly I am getting really annoyed by the FF equivalent falsehoods continuously spread on this site.

A 400 mm f/6.3 lens has an aperture of 63,5 mm.

Do you think this will fit inside this tiny mini sensor consumer camera ?

This thing will flop hard and then sell out on Woot for 99 bucks. It's a really bad design.

Robert

Might also be good for plane spotters, both just to watch and to take an image. Much smaller than good binoculars or a conventional monocular, and of course much cheaper than stabilised versions of those.

$300? For this??? I am *really* not seeing the target audience for this. As was pointed out at the end, this is Not for photographers at all. But if you are walking around, looking at birds, and you think to yourself, "Hey, a crappy photo would be nice, to remind me of the pleasant day.", then sure, it would work. Till the battery dies, that is.

I would take this with my, along with my actual photography equipment, if Canon *paid* me three hundred bucks. If I had the chance to buy one for, say, $10, I'd still turn it down.

It's cool how the EVF has more effective resolution than the sensor.

Interesting review, but this is NOT for photographers.

BUT this could work for birders, with some additions. Delete the card and add WiFi, so you can connect/send photos to your smartphone and save them there. AND add a swappable battery.

How would it work? Svarovski has introduced the "DG Monocular" that takes photos and sends them to your smartphone, where the Cornell Ornithology app "Merlin" can recognize the bird. 8x monocular and not a great camera. But it works.

The kicker? The Svarovski "DG Monocular" costs a bit over $2,000! So take the Canon, make some changes, charge $500 and you would have a winner for birders. It would be a great tool for beginning (and perhaps intermediate) birders helping them id birds and learn.

You'll shoot your eye out!

I was totally on board with this being a cool little smartphone companion, until I saw the photos. I'm pretty sure the Cybershot I had from 2003 has better image quality...

Hmmmm,,,,

Definitely not something for me, although when the crowdfunding for this began, I had a passing interest: I have always had a slightly unusual Canon camera as a sidekick to my pro bodies - but sadly it seems that when I buy such thing, the product range dies (Epocha | PowerShot Pro90 | PowerShot Pro1 | PowerShot TX1 | PowerShot G3X)!

What leapt out at me was the fact that this device has the same launch price as the PowerShot TX1 (albeit that was way back in 2007). It shares the same 400mm equiv. max zoom but the PowerShot Zoom is volumetrically 10% larger!

The TX1 was genuinely a thing of beauty - brushed metal, a pop-out lens that hides behind a automatic metal cap; a continuous 39-399mm zoom; swivel screen (sadly no OVF). An updated TX1would be fantastic... yes, it would be for a niche market, but I'd get one!

TX1 Review: https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canontx1

A voyeur's gadget...

thanks for introducing us to this type of camera; until today i had no idea that these monocular devices are a whole market unto themselves where more than a few brands compete.

I just dont see a market for this. A big enough market to make a good return on capital invested in this.

This was a good review, but even better was the presentation. It moved at a good clip, and the narrative was articulate with a lot of word economy. (Example: talking about extra camera shake at 800mm: Crisp language of just a handful of words with no long rambling detour.) It got to the point, the pacing was good, and it was very engaging. Thanks for the review, but thanks also for the superb execution.

so essentially a waste of money, then...

It should take AA batteries. I don't understand that decision.

Would’ve been so cool if the optics were just a little bit better and the sensor slightly larger and the image processing was on the level of even cheap modern smartphones. From the samples it doesn’t really even look that good for animal ID, especially for small things with subtle distinguishing features like passerine birds.

I’d wager that a 2020 iPhone SE (single lens, single 12MP camera) held up to the eyepiece of a good optical monocular would exceed the image quality of this thing. The EVF is really all it has going for it.

I wonder if someone could put together a better version of this product with a raspberry pi camera, tele c-mount lens, EVF, and some kind of custom housing. Could probably get all the parts together for around the same price point.

How about just updating the Canon G3 X, Announced Jun 18, 2015 instead of this Junk. The Canon "REAL" superzoom with a 1"-type, 20MP BSI-CMOS sensor. That sensor, along with Canon's "OLD" DIGIC 6 processor, with an ISO range of 125-12800, an F2.8-5.6, and a 24-600mm equivalent lens. How about updating that Canon Powershot Zoom instead of this mess? It's been almost 5 years.

Chris; Your review is spot-on. One more annoyance is that the "device's" relationship with that microSD card is spotty. Ours complains regularly about a card not being loaded despite having a brand new SanDisk card in its mouth.

Your suggestion that this is essentially a good stabilized monoscope with a a kinda-camera facility is exactly right...and exactly why we bought ours. That is, we bought it as a very compact electronic pocketable telescope and that's essentially what Canon delivered...with some quirks.

I have to give Canon credit for actually making Chris struggle with finding something nice to say. You know how hard it is to get a Canadian to move off the "extreme niceness" setting? This is as close as I've seen in a while, even the Fuji 50 F:1.0 didn't leave him as flustered (although close). It's all in the "unsaid" - this video is a masterpiece of Canadian understatement if I have ever seen one!

Thank you for the review appreciate it. I'm legally blind and have used a monocular most of my life to see things. I also use photography to see things out of band. When I can't see something I'll take a picture and view it on my 55" monitor. This device has appeal to me enabling me to view and capture in the moment. Enabling out of band viewing. My camera and my phone fill that space right now. This could be very cool. I'd like to try it. The buy in isn't bad historically any visual aid is generally in the $1000 space. Great Review

If I can install a Gcam on that then I'm in!

whilst i love the idea, a bigger sensor a couple of more dials and i think it would be great...... and probably more expensive

Ooh, blackout free shooting? Hello a9 competitor!

1/3" is worse than smart phone

Very poor/average image quality. Good for memories but i'm sure something better could have been done with a little more effort.

An interesting idea and I appreciate your review of this device.

Hmm, at first I thought it could be used to simulate different focal lengths with a stepless zoom (or with defined steps).

When hiking I often wish for something that fits my pocket which lets me see the scene with the focal lengths that I have in my backpack without unmounting the backpack, taking the camera out, maybe change the lens etc. before I can see the scene with the focal length I have in mind.
It would be really nice to have such a small tool available in the pocket. I know that apps exist but often it's hard to read the smartphone display in bright sunlight and also it doesn't work well beyond 50mm FF equivalent because the image quality gets significantly worse while "zooming" in.

Is there such a tool and if so how is it called?

In my opinion as someone who regularly identifies birds in the field and seen ~500 species of birds (a small number actually in the world of birding), I would be wary of using this device for ID purposes. I wish I could test it myself, but from the IQ seen here, it seems like it would make similar species identifications too ambiguous. There just doesn't seem to be enough detail for even casual birding.

Regarding the diopter, and this complaint is for most cameras including my Fujis, it is crazy to me that a control which you adjust once or rarely, can't be locked or pushed in so it's flush.

Not for me, but the idea has a lot of potential. Crank the price up a bit and add some more serious features and IQ.

I don't quite follow the logic of this review. It was entirely framed from the perspective of photo enthusiasts rather than it's target market, then at the end Chris waives off the review he just spent 7 minutes giving using that same reasoning. A rare miss IMO.

Remember the image quality has to be just a bit better than a pic from a smartphone at the same focal lenght

This could be perfect for recce locations and shoot planning - if it had more usable zoom. Ideally from 16mm to 400mm. Then i'd buy one as it's sometimes a bind carrying heavy dslr and lenses around just on a recce.

Totally nails that 1970's hand-tinted Tri-X 400 pushed 2 stops look.

I think if they made a few tweaks, this could be a really compelling little monocular - weather sealing, closer focus, smaller zoom steps, better battery.

Unlike other commenters here, I really don't think the image quality matters that much in a device like this. Sure it would be nice if it was a bit better, but I see it more as a way to just get a reasonable snap to help with identification, or to show others in your group who might struggle to aim binoculars (especially if they made playback easier). And the stabilization would help them use it too.

Or just use it as a memory jogger when you get home. If you're looking to create something for displaying, then this very clearly isn't aimed at you.

Here's hoping for a version 2 in a year or two.

WARNING: Don't read it if you are easily offended!

My persional honest opinion:
It is a gadget!
A crappy piece of junk that feeds consumerism and doesn't serve any other purpose than selling you a device that nobody needs. However solely sold to you for the purpose of making money out of you.

This electronic device will soon end up on a pile of rubbish picking up dust.

If you really want to see birds, wildlife or anything over a long distance.
Buy yourself a good optical binocular.
Nothing beats true vision over an EVF.
It will make more sense and a good pair of binoculars will give you more joy without having it end up on the junkyard.

Sure you can't take pictures with it.
But what's more important?

A trofee in the form of a low resolution image you will never ever look at again... Or... The joy of seeing something remarkable real life and keeping it as a memory forever?

Sometimes a memory is better than an image.
But that's just my opinion.

😅-spot on. However: sealing would have been useful. For the “basic spotter to be”, it’s a must, otherwise you can trash the device pretty easily.