Canon SX120 IS advanced compact

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

My poor little Canon S3IS has just about had it's day and is to be demoted to "kids" camera. It was the top advanced compact of it's day, and while it still takes lovely pictures, the actuator is on it's way out.
So......
Yesterday I bought it's replacement. A Canon SX120 IS. http://www.digitalcamerareview.com/d...owershot+sx120
At half the price of the S3IS, I guess you could class it as mid shelf.
But it still has full manual control and today I had a play with it in Macro mode. I'm suitably impressed. The extra resolution is obvious. I look forward to chasing down all sorts of bugs this afternoon, this morning the only thing sitting still was the flowers.
It's a sturdy little unit this too, a little weightier than most of the cameras in it's price range. It has a good feel to it.


What i'll miss most about the S3IS is the vari-angled lcd display, it was the best thing since sliced bread in my opinion. (I look forward to getting that feature back when I purchase the 60D later this year. )

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

The other thing I didn't mention was the great improvement to Live View and the manual focusing (no more holding down this button while pressing that button yah!) just a simple twirl of the dial, super. Technology has come a long way since 2006.
Going to search now to see what hacks have been developed. The one I used for the s3is enabled long exposures, 59sec, histogram, ebook reader, expanded iso etc etc. You can find the hacks here. http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK
Step by step video here....http://www.5min.com/Video/How-to-Hac...335566#src=rss
I love new toys.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

You know you can hack your dslr's too. I'm pretty sure it can add a temperature gauge to your camera...handy for darks.

[lacad01 (Adam)]

Looks interesting JJJ, I also have a S3IS which has been passed down to my daughter. New model looks pretty compact when the lens is tucked away and also interesting it's down to two AA cells instead of four. I hated the manual focus on the S3, next to useless

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

It's a lot slimmer than the S3, but has no view finder (not many do now, shame that, even a small finder is better than none, and it does save on power consumption). Nor does it have a lens cap that flaps around in the wind when no in use, it's integrated into the lens instead.

[lacad01 (Adam)]

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

Nor does it have a lens cap that flaps around in the wind when no in use, it's integrated into the lens instead.

Another thing which used to bug me