Canon PowerShot SX130IS 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 12x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom with 3.0-Inch LCD (OLD MODEL)

The Canon PowerShot SX130IS was my first camera, and it still one of my favorites. It has the power and features available in larger, pricier cameras but the portability to go anywhere, and it's quite resilient to damage. So, then -- list time: PROS: -Compact and portable, will easily fit into a pocket. -Excellent Zoom, puts my Eos Rebel T3i to shame. Doubles for a pair of binoculars now and then. -A Macro function, which is a special point of interest for some. It won't match dedicated macro lenses or cameras, but having it certainly makes a difference in your photos. -Around 9000 other features. Not literally, but this camera can handle a good variety of challenges and be set to perform quite a lot of functions, from portrait to landscape shots. -For its price point, it takes good photos and video. Pricier cameras would take better photos and video... but you would have to go more than double on the expense for that to happen. -There aren't any weird tints to your photos with this camera. -Runs on two AA batteries, which is great when you're traveling. -Having a wrist strap, while common to many cameras, is still a pro when the camera is small enough to fit in one hand. -You can control the entire camera with your right hand. CONS: -You better have a lot of AA batteries. Battery life, depending on use, can range from 3-7 hours... unless you are taking photos very quickly or taking video, in which case two hours would be impressive. -Ten minute video length, max -- you can take as many videos as your memory card allows, but none of them will be longer than ten minutes. -If dust gets into the (irremovable) lens (it will,) you will know. And may the force be with you in trying to remove it on your own. -Some people won't find the video or sound quality up to snuff. Additionally, trying to play a video on some computers will often necessitate a download of the Combined Community Codec Pack. Windows doesn't like MP4s, for some reason. -It's a little slow, especially under low-light conditions. -The LCD screen is built-in to the camera -- it doesn't flip out. -It's also your viewfinder. This particular Powershot is my favorite of the series. It's never let me down, it can go anywhere with me, and it lets me photograph moths and landscapes with equal success. It has a myriad of features, and most of them aren't novelty gimmicks. Especially for it's relatively low price, this is both a great travel-camera and an excellent beginner camera. It won't disappoint you.

First, I do like this camera. The quality of the high res photos is excellent. As a longtime photo buff that used a Canon A1 for 25 years, this camera will do almost everything that SLR would do and a bunch of stuff it did not do. It is easy to use and combines the ability to use automatic features as well as a complete manual mode. Now for the stuff that keeps it from being 5 stars. It eats batteries. Forget about using alkaline batteries and go with rechargeables. The mfg estimates of number of pictures or amount of video is pretty meaningless. You will get about an hour of shooting time, depending on how much you use the zoom and flash. I did some testing and with continuous recording I got about 55 minutes of video...no zooming and very little review. I was able to shoot about 30 minutes of video and 400 pictures using some zoom and flash but it was all done in less than an hour of shoot time. When I say shoot time, I mean the actual time the camera is on. Not elapsed time, but, constantly turning on and off the camera does cost battery life as well. Next, manual focus does not work all that well. Using the little wheel is tedious. As for video...the limit of 10 minutes of video at a time is pretty stupid. I could see it if it was to accommodate the 4gb file size of fat 32 but 10 minutes of video at the highest resolution possible results in a file of less than 2gb. They could easily have gone with a 20 minute limit. The other thing about the video is the .mov (Adobe Flash) format of the video files. Just about the only thing that will play them is a computer with Flash installed. None of my standalone players will play them. You have to spend the time to convert them (and btw...the software that comes with the camera does not export any readable formats so you will have to use some other software to do that.) That all assumes that you just try to load the memory card via USB and not use the camera to play the files. Last...use fast, high quality memory cards (I am using Class 10 PNY cards and they seem to work well.) Again, I like the camera and all of these negatives only cost it 1 star!

I hemmed and hawed for months about getting this or a higher end camera and for the price I ended up with this one. I am so glad I made the purchase I did. I love to think I'm going to use all of the settings and options to make artistic photographs but it rarely happens. However the options are there for when I do have the patience and the time to think about what it is I'm going to do. The on screen directions help tremendously for those occasions since I can easily forget what the different settings are designed for. The quality of the pictures are fantastic and the handling of the camera feels natural. This was a camera purchased to take pictures and video of our new baby. We knew we needed something that would preserve good quality pictures and take video when we needed it. Both have been excellent. The video is very clear, movement is smooth and the audio is great. There are no tinny sounds or problems with the mike in any way. The options for various settings allows us to put it in "squirmy kid" mode and leave it there for when we need it. I hesitated for a long time because of all the negative reviews on the battery life. I wanted a camera that took standard batteries but, obviously, didn't want to change those batteries every time I used it. I have to say I have not had an issue with the battery life being short, and we take waaaaaayyyyy to many pictures. That being said I do use rechargeable batteries and that might make a difference. But, if I remember correctly the cheapo batteries the camera came with didn't do so bad either, they went fairly quickly but it wasn't the same day or anything. Bottom line I'm glad I saved the money and got this camera, it's got everything I need, extremely user friendly, high quality and is fairly durable.