PowerShot SX710 HS (Black)

Bought this through Amazon but it was a refurbished model from another seller (SEBASTIAN2000). I received it on the earliest of the estimated delivery days in perfect condition. Cool! Amazon has us SO spoiled in receiving our purchases super-quickly. I used to be an avid hobbyist, but now I mostly want to point and shoot. I want my camera to be intuitive and allow me to relive my memories in high quality living color. I wanted it to send pictures to my computer remotely (not my phone, but this will do both those thigs if you want) and keep them safe in a cloud. Canon has their Image Gateway to do that. When I go to Alaska next year I can upload my pictures to my computer 2500 miles away as long as I can access a Wifi connection. That's cool! As an aside, it appears that Dropbox is not viable any longer to go directly to from any camera. I do NOT want to load up my phone with a thousand pictures. I prefer to edit and weed them on my computer. I had one little issue trying to hook up my wifi that I had to call them about. My computer wasn't automatically seeing the camera (as it was supposed to, I guess) and there was nothing in the instructions about if this happened. But, Canon walked me through it easily. Had to manually add it to my devices. I'll also say that such a huge company with SO many products can make it a little daunting to find online help. I always try to do that first (even though I hate slogging through techy stuff to perform the magic that is now possible). So, great that you can call them. The zoom on this camera seems to be the biggest available on a small camera. It's excellent, and the quality holds up. It has another cool feature -- the camera will stop zooming when it senses that the picture will start to become grainy. But there's more zoom available if you want to go there. (See the three pics that illustrate this.) It's also great that you can choose aperture or shutter priority and the camera still is automatic after that. For moving subjects or for wanting a particular depth of field, that's awesome. You can change to that function very fast, which could be important. I opted for the small camera so I can't fault it for not being a big camera -- no tilty viewing screen, no interchangeable lenses or filters, etc. But this amazing little camera will do everything 98% of us want to do.

This is at least the 8th digital camera I've had (5 Canons, 2 Kodaks, and an HP). As zoom lenses improved, I opted for larger-but-better zoom models, including two of Canon's (S3 IS and SX20 IS). I have liked the balance of great zoom but smaller-than-SLR size. However in recent years, I have wanted a smaller camera due to size limitations of the baggage I currently carry. After researching for a year or so, I settled on the SX7x0 HS to replace my SX20 IS. I waited until the SX710 came out and bought it just prior to a 2 1/2 week European vacation. I chose it over the 700 due to the enhanced mobile options and higher resolution. I have now taken almost 1,000 pictures and videos on it. Here are some observations in no particular order: * Battery life is fair with the stock battery and good with aftermarket batteries. I carried three (one in the camera, two in the case) and that proved adequate for weeks of travel. I had to charge every few days but never needed more even with heavy use. * Speed is mostly very good. I have review turned on (displays the photo after taking it) which slows things down slightly. Power up is quick. Focus is quick. Shot to shot with review on and having to focus again is not as quick as I'd like, but quick enough that I made no efforts to fix the problem (either turning review off and/or continuous shooting). Only on rare occasion did I miss a shot as a result. * Image quality is good for its size. It is noticeably inferior to the SX20 and S3 in one way that could be important to some people. At the long end of the zoom range, distortion from noise reduction is quite noticeable even at low ISO settings. I have not done direct camera-to-camera comparisons, but my hunch is that the usable information in the images from the SX710 is considerably less than the SX20, despite almost double the megapixles. However, when viewing on a screen (fit to screen) or printing smaller formats (say, 4x6) I think this problem would be unnoticeable. Aside from that one flaw, the camera takes very nice pictures which match or exceed the quality of larger models from even the recent past. * Video quality is excellent for its size. I took video at 720p to save file size (v.s. 1080p). Both the video quality and audio quality were noticeably better from any previous camera I've had, including the other Canons. * Ergonomics are fair. Canon packs a lot of features into a small package. I don't have specific suggestions for improvement, but I do regularly encounter several problems. Inserting or removing the camera to/from the case requires some care to avoid turning it on with one of the multitude of buttons that turns the camera on. The power, shutter, and movie buttons are close enough together to cause wrong-button-pushing problems. And occasionally the back panel buttons (especially the phone button) gets accidentally pressed. * Phone pairing features are very useful. This is the first camera I've had with those features and I wound up using several of them (transfer the images to the phone, and remote control). That was very handy and they're very easy to use after learning how. Based on what I've read about the 700, I'm glad I waited for the 710 for this reason alone. Based on my experiences, I believe this form factor now satisfies the important requirements that previously could only be met with a larger zoom (ala the SX60 and predecessors). Unless you need an absurdly long zoom (more than 30x), and provided you can tolerate the image quality issues at the long end of the zoom, the next logical step up from this is a SLR. An SLR is too big (and expensive) for me, so this camera is my choice. So far, I'm very happy with it.

I bought this on Black Friday which gave me a special offer to order its accessories which included a large size bag and 16GB memory card. The reason I bought this camera was because I was tired of using smartphones' cameras due to their unsatisfying qualities. I have use all kind of smartphones including samsung galaxy, iphone, nokia, sony Xperia, and many more. However, I have not used many digital cameras before; I only had a Nikon digital camera before this that was not so great and don't remember its model number. I just wanted to have a camera that could take high quality pictures @any occasions and something that I could use for years with no need to get something new. PROS: great quality, easy to use (even for beginners), a nice and easy to follow manual, nice flashlight, amazing zoom, easy to connect to your smart-phone through Near-Field Communication (NFC) build-in wifi, can control your camera through your smartphone and save your pictures into your phone with a feature to resize the pictures but still keep the same great quality so it won't take much room of your smartphone's storage or simply select pics and send them to your cellphone through your camera, large and bright LCD screen with adjustable display contrast, small size and so handy to carry with you on any occasions, rechargeable battery so no need to buy any AAA batteries. CONS: nothing so far I would recommend this camera if you are simply looking for a camera made for beginners or even for professional photographers that are looking for cheaper camera to carry on with them.

Bottom line: I'd buy it again. The good: * Very sturdy case, incredible zoom, great photos. Good video, too. * A little larger than the last model, but still very handy. * Takes equal to or better photos than many SLRs. You'll want something to steady the extreme zooms, though. * A slide toggle locks down the annoying flash popup of previous models. The not so good: * The WiFi feature is useless, just like previous models. You may be able to connect to your home WiFi network, and even spot your PC on the network, but the camera always times out. I've tried multiple devices and networks on two generations of Canon cameras. When other computers and devices on the network can see and connect to each other but the camera can't, it's hard to lay the blame anywhere but on the camera software. On the bright side, simply remove the SD card, connect it to a dongle, plug it into your PC, and you're set. * The "Menu" button is annoyingly too close to the bottom right edge of the camera, where your palm may accidentally engage it. If that happens when you're about to take a shot, the menu suddenly pops up, interrupting everything. * The "power" and "video" buttons have exchanged places on this camera for some reason. I don't know how many times I've pushed the wrong button, trying to turn the power off, only to find I've just started filming video of the inside of my pocket. Great. * The included wrist lanyard is worse than useless: there is no cinch to snug it to your wrist, so the camera is still not secure. * I don't recommend the on-camera photo editing software - the screen is too small to see what you are doing.

I am an avid amateur photographer that travels a lot (love travel photography!), and I carry both my professional camera and a smaller camera with me wherever I am going. I have used various professional and "point-and-shoot" cameras over the years for the quick and easy shots, or for utilizing as a backup camera to have along with me whenever I do not want to carry my larger, more bulky (and a lot more expensive!) camera around. I have never been disappointed with any Canon camera I have owned in the past, and this one is no disappointment for me, either. I have owned 3 Canon Powershot cameras over the years and this one is amazing and by far the best. It is very easy to use, and has simple and easy to adjust controls (no fumbling). It has been very easy and reliable to use for just about everything so far, from travel photos to zoom images, simple portrait images, and even occasional macro shots. The auto shoot modes are very reliable for most shots and I have been impressed with the rapid focus and clarity of the images. I was surprised that I like the "creative shot" feature that gives you about 5 or 6 images of the same shot that are edited by the camera. Sometimes you can get some really great unexpected photos this way. The flash is very "usable" and will not fire unless the button is pushed to raise the flash. That is an improvement over some other cameras that I have used in the past that require you to stop and change your camera settings every single time you want to shoot an image in a darker or shaded spot without the flash. Also, the connectivity to my iPhone was very easy. I can look at all of the photos on the camera on my phone, pick and choose the ones I want to download to my phone (or to my computer) wirelessly, and also control the camera remotely using my iPhone. I was amazed with the functionality of this camera, ease of use, and the quality of the images. Another home run for Canon in the point and shoot camera world.

I purchased this camera for my mother to take on her vacation overseas. I needed something lightweight and easy to use, basically something I could have her set on auto and have the camera do the rest of the work. I must say that I am very disappointed in Canon. My first problems with this camera occured when trying to install the battery and memory card. The battery door is fairly stiff and every time I opened it I would press the power button on the top of the camera. I think the power button is poorly placed and should also be recessed. The next problem happened when trying to take pictures, there really is no place to put your thumb. Holding the camera normally places your thumb on the playback button which gets depressed and takes your eyes off of what you are trying to photograph. If you're lucky enough to not accidently press the power button while taking a picture or the playback button your next roadblock might be the flash. Maybe it has been a while since I had a point and shoot with a pop up flash, but I seem to remember it automatically popping up with the last one I used. This camera will notify you on the screen that you have to use flash and then you have to manually press a button for the flash to pop up. after the flash pops up the next step is to press the shutter about 4-5 times until it finally takes a picture. I'm not quite sure of the reason for the delay, the battery was fully charged, the focus was not "searching", I had given plenty of time for the flash to charge. All of that might be excusable if the picture quality was exceptional, but it is not. I found that almost all of the pictures taken were overexposed by about 2/3 - 1 stop and the white balance much too warm. I had a Canon point and shoot in the past that let me set the exposure compensation to work in all modes. But Auto mode in this camera would not let me do that. only when I switched to Program mode. I took some pictures with my Canon 5D MKII and Fuji X100s, and while I don't expect this camera to compete I would think that the exposure would be similar. but it was overexposed. Canon is always my "go to" for camera gear since all of my pro gear is from them. I just can't recommend this to anyone though.

I bought this camera for a trip to Kenya, primarily to capture wildlife. It was great, even compared with much more expensive cameras my friends had. However, I was very unhappy to come home and find out that it can't coordinate with my MacBook by wifi, which of course is one of the primary features of the camera. I was able to upload my photos with the SD card, but there is nothing that says this, and I only found out because I finally had to call Canon support. I am still considering returning the camera because of this. Update: one more problem I've discovered. The battery shows completely full and then drops to red zone and shuts down without any warning. So I checked battery life before I went out for the day thinking I'd be able to take photos. It showed that the camera was completely charged. When I actually tried to use it an hour later, it took 3 shots, went into the red zone and turned off. NOT happy. So the photos are great, but other issues are a real hindrance

I am very happy with my decision to purchase this camera. After reviewing many of the point and shoot non SLR cameras this was my choice. The camera body is not as small is many out there but very compact for what it is capable of and works in my favor having fairly large hands. I was looking for something quick to grab while out in the woods to catch a few of the wildlife shots I always seem to miss with my big SLR camera. The 30x optical zoom was what sold me in the first place. My SLR is just to big to wield around to get the shot. For the same zoom as this camera an entire lenses change out would be necessary. By that time your subject is long gone... If you're not a novice which I am, you will appreciate all of the control you have over your shots in different mode settings. Seems like just as many choices as I have on my SLR in a small body camera. With this camera P-mode is your best friend and gives you just enough of the right possible adjustments for even a novice like me to get a great shot. Even when zoomed to the 30x optical extent or into digital zoom. So far I have had no low light focus issues as some have mentioned. Of course I have a tendency to shoot several shots of the subject. Because IMHO there is no such thing as perfect, even with an expensive SLR. With a 64GB card, I can shoot over the max 9999 shots that this camera reports available so deleting a few crappy shots is no big deal. This camera is exactly what I was looking for to close the gap in my photography and video needs for a compact, on the fly grab and shot with plenty of features. Pros: 1.Unless manually released the camera will default to no flash and shoots a fine photo without flash. Of course it will up the ISO setting which tends to give a slight bit of granulation but well with in an acceptable range in a low light setting. 2. Very good image stabilization even into the digital zoom range. There are two settings of which I haven't went beyond the standard one. The second IS setting should be great when shooting video. 3. Variety of possible shooting modes and adjustments just like your SLR if you own one. You will definitely 4. Fastest I have ever connected anything to Wi-Fi or my Droid phone. Both Wi-Fi to my computer and the NFC to my Droid seem to work flawless. I had prepared myself for the typical process of elimination to find out why it didn't work, there was none... it did work first time on both accounts. Very fast transfers to both the computer and the phone. I was amazed! 5. Easily navigable menus and available adjustments for great shots. I'll post a few photos taken at about 5:30am in low light as examples with various zoom levels, As Is said I am just a novice so don't be too critical :-) Cons: Only one so far and it certainly doesn't bother me but I will add it just in case it may be important to someone else. The battery indicator seems to show full, or 2/3 then drops to nothing. I have found that once the camera has been cycled off then back on, you still have battery for several more shots before it actually needs to be changed. I have seen others refer to this fact also but it's certainly no worse than many other battery indicators on some of my other electronic devices. My company I-phone 4S drops down to 43% then shuts off after another minute. Think of it as a deep cycle battery and adjust accordingly and you'll be fine. I never go anywhere with just one battery.