The Canon Powershot SX10 is an ultra-zoom digital camera that boasts 20x lens and 10 megapixel photographs.
Comparable to a professional SLR in shape and size, the camera looks formidable enough to make the heads of common buyers turn away.
However, within this hulking beast lies a fairly easy-to-use, powerful point-and-shoot digital camera.
The camera feels good to hold.
A deep hand-grip enables users to hold on to the camera firmly with one hand.
The index finger falls onto the shoot button comfortably.
The camera is somewhat heavy for a digital camera, owing to the large lens it holds inside.
The 20x optically-stabilized lens gives users wide-angle photography as well as telescopic shots.
A quiet USM motor efficiently powers the lens, but becomes a little slow towards the telescopic zoom end.
The lens has a stepped-zoom, and therefore does not cover a continuous range of zoom levels.
Instead, it stops at preset distances, which makes accurate zooming to the desired level impossible.
A 2.
5 inch LCD screen that can tilt and swivel is on the user's side of the camera, along with an electronic viewfinder.
The LCD is very easy to use and displays sharp images.
Though it is not very effective while viewing photos under direct sunlight, it is possible to adjust its brightness to optimize the display.
The viewfinder is somewhat slow to respond, and cycling between the LCD display and the electronic viewfinder display is quite a pain.
The camera has an excellent feature for users who are going to shoot a lot of videos using this camera - a dedicated one-touch movie mode button.
This feature is not very common in digital cameras, and especially the ones under the ultra-zoom category.
The camera comes with a powerful flash that takes a little less than 10 seconds to recycle when the camera is running on fully charged or brand new batteries.
The DIGIC IV processor that powers this camera performs very well, giving quick response times and good image processing.
Overall, this camera is a good buy, despite its drawbacks.
It would suit the needs of an amateur photographer having an all-day photo-shooting session.