Canon SX200 - the right camera for me?

[marek_]

Hello all,

After my ancient Canon A95 died on me, I've been trying to make sense of all the options on the camera market. Very hard to find one that's clearly the best choice but my sight has fixed on SX200 for the moment and wanted to ask for your advice.

The most important requirement for me is image quality - clear and crisp. And to me Canon gets that right most of the time so I left out everything else for the moment. Sony and Panasonic seemed to have grainy texture on 100% crop which feels unusual to me after years of using A95. I was all ready to buy Panasonic TZ65 actually with its £150 price tag. But apparently they have completely run out and looks like for good. After that I went back to searching and decided to stick with Canon.

Next requirement is the size. My A95 was too bulgy for a pocket and the separate camera bag started to feel annoying. I'm hoping that in the last 6 years technology has advanced enough to provide a pocket-size camera with good image quality.

My upper price limit is around £250, with lower being better.

I think I went through almost every Canon camera for the last 3 years and selected some last contestants: A3100, SD940, A2000 and SX200. SX200 (at £200) stood out because the wide angle and large zoom range seem quite fun. My concerns are low battery life reported in some reviews and purple fringing on some sample images (which apparently comes with super-zooms). Not sure yet if the popup flash will be an issue. Not concerned about the lack of zooming during filming since I don't really film anything.

What do you think? Are there any better options for me?

Thanks,
Marek

[mtclimber]

marek-

Welcome to the Forum. We're delighted that you dropped by.

As you seem to be a dedicated Canon fan, either the Canon SX-200 (now attractively reduced in price) or the Canon SX-210 should fill the bill. Personally I found the size of the SX-210 a bit large for me. Thus, I settled on the SX-200. I quickly developed a work-around for the pesky pop-up flash and , like you I do not do video, so it was a happy selection that saved a bit of money and has provided very good image quality.

Sarah Joyce