Hey, this is Scott of Photography Banzai. Today I'm taking a look at this
Powershot SX420 IS from Canon. Standard bridge camera format,
you have the fixed lens and a small sensor inside. So I'm going to compare this to a smartphone in
image quality, video quality, and also maybe a mirrorless camera as well...
Are these cameras decent these days, let's try to find out!
This specific camera has a built-in 42x optical zoom lens with image stabilization,
so that's a nice feature on there. Also 20 megapixels but it is the small 1/2.3
inch sensor so that's kind of the same sensor as action cameras these days. Still a little tiny
bit larger than most smartphone sensors. Let's take a look at the build quality.
A lot of plastics but they feel pretty decent. Doesn't really creak too much
or anything like that. Does have a built-in flash
which you have to pull up manually. Of course, the lens is fixed to the
camera you cannot change it. Let's take a look at the lens. Does come with this little
cap with the strap on there. And if you want to turn the
camera on it's on the top here. On off button plus a jog dial for
zoom and the shutter button. Let's turn it on, see how quick it goes. Let's go
through the range of the zoom so it's fully wide.. so you can see it extends quite a bit.
On the bottom here we have the tripod connector it is a metal,
which is good one thing to take note of the tripod socket is not in line with the lens. So if you do
panoramas or something just keep that in mind. And the battery door, take that battery out.
They do have different capacity versions of this NB-11.
This is the LH which has 800 milliamp hours, and your memo ry card is in the
same area as the battery, SD! It does have a little door here
so there is potentially some type of replacement if you wanted to use
AC power, you get a DC coupler in there. It does have a little door here for your
usb connection, so this is a very old style usb connection.
Camera does come with a charger, so no usb charging in this case.
Video record button, auto toggle, so auto or program modes like that.
Review button and a directional pad plus a function set button in the middle.
Menu button and a wireless connection button, so it does have wi-fi connectivity.
The camera does have nfc connectivity for the app. I do not have any nfc
devices so I can't test that out. The grip is pretty decent for a small
camera like this and it is relatively compact considering the 42x zoom.
So you've got your auto toggle button. Normally it'll be in auto mode by
default. If you do press that it'll give you options to adjust the camera in more detail.
If you press the function set button you'll have other options here.
So light metering, you got your color settings which is adjustments to the jpeg image.
You're not going to have raw capability with this camera so something like that could be useful.
Here we've got white balance settings. This is also something useful
when you only have jpeg. Also have timer settings so if
you do want to set a timer with the camera that could be useful in some situations.
Here is our image formats so 16x9, 3x2, the default is 4x3... that's the standard
sensor size and there is also 1:1 ratio. And you've got your pixel settings here.
If you wanted to take smaller photos for some reason you could do that.
Have your HD movie settings or VGA. HD is 720p. When you're in program mode you've got your super
fine image quality or fine image quality. I believe that is default so if you want
the highest image quality possible go into Program Mode with super fine.
Let's go into the main menu, a few other options in here you have your autofocus frame.
So center, face AI AF, and also tracking autofocus. Let's do tracking autofocus.
So in this case you can try to track a subject by half pressing the shutter on something and then
you can move the camera... and hopefully it will track that subject. Appears to be working okay at
the moment with this simple subject. And with the center frame autofocus
you have different sizes so normal and small. You also have a few other settings based on
servo modes so continuous focus settings. Autofocus beam assist, that light right here...
The image stabilization does have some settings to it. Continuous mode
is default. Or you can do only taking photos, or turn it off completely. And in continuous
you have two different settings for stabilization. And there is also a date stamp. If you've use
that, it's an old film era feature where it will fully embed a date and time on your images.
Let's try out the wireless mode and see if it works.
And we've got a nickname that it wants. Transfer images between cameras, smartphone,
computer, wi-fi printer, or upload to a web service. Let's do the smartphone. Add device...
In this case you turn the camera into the wi-fi mode and you have
to connect your phone to this access point. So in this case we've got the phone right there
we can connect to and then you have to do a password. Then you boot up the Canon connect
app. Then you also have to confirm it! Let's try the remote live shooting. So
you can actually zoom the camera through the app which is pretty cool. Do you have the timer
so that'll be good if you want to do family portraits or something. Not much to the app.
Other cameras do have a lot more settings. I will be going over the image quality
of this camera, so you can take a look at it and see if it is detailed enough for you.
Of course you get the nice optical zoom lens which I do think is still a good
benefit compared to most smartphones. There are some smartphones with
optical zoom lenses, but they won't be this good. So there's a 42x that's a pretty long range on it,
which is 4.3 to 180.6 millimeters based on the sensor size.
Of course you can convert that to a full frame equivalent if you want and
the aperture is f/3.5 to 6.6 through the range. The phone that I'm using to compare it to is the
Moto G Stylus 5G. It does not have an optical zoom lens, so there is a very big difference
with this camera compared to that phone. Indoors I also do a test with the Canon EOS
M50. You can see the differences between this camera and a decent
camera that you can change the lenses on. It is relatively compact and low cost so
you do have the nice optical zoom lens, but besides that you have to decide for yourself
what there is to.. uhh.. benefit from. It's too bad these cameras still
don't have raw image format, but they're meant to be pretty simple.
That was a look at the Canon Powershot SX420 IS compared to other options out there.
Hope you enjoyed the video. I'm Scott of Photography Banzai, thanks!