Canon PowerShot SX50 HS Digital Camera with 50x Ultra Wide Angle 24-1200mm Lens (12.1 MP, 50x Zoom) 2.8 inch Vari-angle LCD

Cards on the table, folks... my main camera is a Nikon D7100. My backup is a Nikon D200. My first DSLR was a Nikon D70. I am a Nikon man with Nikkor glass. I was going to Central America. I'd heard how you get mugged every 5 minutes. I wanted a camera that would take great photos but that if it got stolen, well... And I wanted a lightweight, relatively small camera that I could make unobtrusive in muggy situations. And of course, if you're going for a bridge, there's no legacy, so this was the chance for Nikon man to try a Canon camera. Yes, folks, you guessed it. Let me introduce you to my new mistress. This is a great little camera. It produces very likeable photos, with no fuss at all. Its zoom is totally ridiculous - 50x! But yes, I used it once or twice to great effect. OK. Like any mistress, this camera has its irritating features. If you take several shots in a very short time, you can land up with serious shutter lag. That is, you can find yourself waiting a second or so for the shutter to click, and normally if you're taking a lot of shots in a short time, that is not a desirable feature. The huge zoom can lead to shaky shots - rather more than I would really want of my photos are blurry. A little camera like this tempts snapshots, and the zoom tempts candid, but it isn't a miracle-worker and you have to manage your expectations. Colour, contrast, fantastic, nothing to say. The camera's viewfinder (I chose this camera largely because it has a viewfinder) is electronic and not wonderful, but it works and delivers. You can also use the screen to frame your shots. That's a feature I came to enjoy, since the screen can rotate, allowing you to shoot overhead or low down without difficulty. Or even round corners. What really, really irritated me was that the native RAW shots (CR2) can only be read by modern software. And the modern software only runs on modern operating systems. So to shoot RAW, I would have to upgrade my Leopard operating system to Snow Leopard or Lion, which I really, really did not want to do. But in the end, I did it anyway. Bottom line? Would I have looked for a different camera, had I know then what I know now? No. Now that I'm back in the real world I carry this great little beast everywhere with me.

This is a brilliant camera for professional photographers or people who just want to take brilliant photo's. it provides many modes, such as scene and allows you to play around with the composition. it also has record which is quite appropriate for capturing the moment. it is easy to hold, and the zoom id brilliant! it may however be appropriate to get a tripod since when zooming long distance it is really quite difficult to hold steady. the camera has many settings to play around with, and a LED screen in which can be turned around so as to protect from scratching it can also be pulled out like a camcorder and can be closed so that you can take a photo through the view finder. it is a top notch camera. the only thing that i dislike is the instructions which are on a disc therefore is difficult to refer to easily. The product is brilliant, and should fulfill anyone's photography needs. the delivery however was not so good since i had to wait for more than 3 weeks to receive it since Yodel had failed to deliver it, however i was only to find that the camera had been delivered to the wrong house, in which i wouldn't mind to much if it wasn't a camera worth that much money. but the product is great :)

I've had nearly every SX bridge camera in the Canon series and, except for the disastrous SX1, this is head and shoulders above the rest. Canon have really produced something amazing with this one. The zoom is outrageous and produces excellent quality pictures right through to the top end of the zoom. I've always like the way Canon's digital cameras produce natural colours and don't over process in the camera. The quality of the photos this produces are of very high quality, sharp and natural with good exposure in even tricky situations. I also have a G15 and, other than in low light with ISO's above 800, the SX50 produces pictures of equal quality. If you want a single camera that can master all situations and give you a zoom range that replaces a full kit bag then this is it. The movie quality is superb. Watching full HD movies straight out of the camera through a good quality HDMI lead and on a HD TV is like watching a HD TV channel. It is crisp and crystal clear with very fine detail. It's like looking through a window! As you can guess by now I love it. If you're in the market for a bridge camera then look no further. Buy it!

Whether you are a 'seasoned pro' or an absolute novice, the Canon SX50 HS Is going to fully meet all your requirements. In Auto mode you have the perfect point and shoot camera, which will more than suffice as you begin to get more creative with the whole range of settings which are available from which you can 'experiment' to build on your expertise. The telephoto range of the Canon lens will absolutely 'blow you away' giving you incredible close up photos without worrying about camera shake due to the image stabiliser which is built into this camera. It is compact, and lightweight, but still with the build quality that comes with any Canon camera whether you pay hundreds or thousands of pounds. It also has a high quality Canon, glass lens. Not plastic, or optical resin. The results of that will speak for themselves too. You would also benefit from the purchase of a quality branded SD card, Kingston or SanDisk, and most certainly a Class 10. In this instance, names and numbers matter. A perfect 'go anywhere' camera. They say, "you get what you pay for". For what you pay, you will be astounded at what you get.

I was swayed by the x50 lens and this is quite impressive. However, it is also difficult to keep it steady without a rest of some sort when on full magnification. In the fashion of modern camaeras it is quite complex with all the screen readings and the manual leaves something to be desired. I used a 35mm SLR for many years but found this one difficult to understand. My main complaint is the many buttons on the rear face, several of which I find I turn on or off with the heel of my right hand thumb simply by picking up the camera and lifting it to the shooting position. My fault by not handling it before purchase but still something I did not expect to cope with. Pretty reasonable general results in photographic terms, really impressive x50 shots, pretty reasonable low light non-flash results, a bit of colour change and washing out with close flash use. Not a camera I will grow to love and I am saving to replace it as soon as practical. ACD

My experience of taking pictures and video started in the digital age about 5 years ago and this is only the 4th camera I have owned. Once the battery was charged and I found a suitable SD card (it will take HCSD and XCSD cards), I left the camera set to AUTO and started taking photographs of things far and near - sometimes with flash and always hand-held (so far anyway). . I can confidently say that the Canon SX50 is the most easy to use, intuitive and capable stills camera I have ever had. The image quality is so very good - not just as the image initially appears on the computer screen, but much more meaningfully when expanded to its full image-pixel for screen-pixel size. Relative to my 15.6" laptop screen that would be 3 times the width and 4 times the height of the screen for the default 4000 X 3000 pixel stills setting on the camera. The only mild criticism might be that at this maximum expansion the image is consistently grainy (because of high ISO on the auto setting no doubt) but very clear and sharp nethertheless - it's a small price to pay for a quick, blur free, hand-held exposure. . With care, it is rare to get a blurred image, the only situation where this often happens is when a nearer object (usually a tree branch in my experience) intervenes and takes the focus, leaving the wanted vista out of focus. No doubt manual focusing can be done, but a way to reset or assist the auto-focus would be more useful. . More on the negative side, as someone else has noticed, the camera auto-focus does seem to unnecessarily 'hunt', ie gains focus then loses it then gets it back and so on before settling down. . Potentially much more serious for video is that it has a (lens barrel) judder when zooming, particularly when zooming out. I can't say that it is severe, but it does spoil an otherwise excellent video capability. No one else has mentioned this and the rather good Moon clip doesn't appear to demonstrate it, so I think my one may be slightly defective. I have noticed also that the camera is surprisingly vocal - it's internal moving parts can be clearly heard when being used - is this a sign of damage or normal for this model? - it was delivered by the Post Office. Video cameras I have had in the past did not show this juddering at all. Does anyone have any ideas? UPDATE 08 DEC 2012 I still don't know for sure whether my camera is defective, but further use has convinced me that I will not want to use it for video work. It sometimes loses the focus when zooming and the judder is still apparent - in fact that was the first thing I noticed about this camera as I looked at the view screen when using the zoom for the first time in the room where I am now writing this. There seems to be a 'looseness' in its zooming mechanism on which I can only speculate. . I can't recommend this camera for video based on my experience, but no one who has written a review has noticed what has been obvious to me right from the start, so please, if so inclined, buy one but keep an open mind. I am returning it for a refund.

I wanted a super-zoom camera to complement my Canon S120 compact (5x zoom) and my smartphone. I hope it will do a better job of bird and animal photography for me. My shortlist was this SX50, the Lumix FZ72 and the Coolpix P600, so I tried the SX50 and the FZ72 side by side but decided against trying the P600 based purely on reviews and specs; I may have been wrong not to try it. Pros In my simple tests the SX50 produced better pictures at full zoom - better exposed and sharper than the Lumix - and as zoom is what I want it for, for me its the better of the two. I like the tilting display screen on the SX50. When I'm using a long zoom I keep the screen folded away and brace the camera against my face and compose through the EVF. The foldaway screen means I don't keep getting nose grease on the screen's glass. The SX50 is smaller than the Lumix and about the same weight. I like smaller, but others may not. Cons I'm not mad on the colour of the pictures the SX50 makes when set to AWB, the FZ72 produces white balance that is more to my taste when un-zoomed (if thats a word), but if you take the trouble to set the WB to match the light source the SX50 is quite OK. The FZ72 has a wider field of view at 20mm vs 24mm for the SX50. My S120 is better than either of these for taking pictures of nearby objects - my mission for this camera is to take pictures of distant things, so picture quality at large magnification is the important issue for me. Its the same with the wider field of view of the FZ72, its not what I want this camera to do. Like all the super-zooms these cameras have a small sensors so there is a limit on what they can do, but for me 50x or 60x zoom is simply incredible and even more so is the fact that you can produce some pretty good pictures when hand holding them at this magnification.

My recent purchase of the Canon PowerShot SX50 has proved to be a disappointment. It's great to have such a powerful zoom lens and the fold out rear screen is also very versatile. However, ever since the days when I used to shoot on film, I have always preferred to use a camera with a viewfinder. This is where IMHO the Canon fails miserably. The viewfinder is rather small and of fairly low resolution. The image is not very sharp either. I also noticed a disconcerting red fringing effect on the white screen graphics when looking through the viewfinder. I thought this could be due to wearing spectacles so I took them off, readjusted the diopter control to compensate for my vision, but the red fringing was still very apparent. I asked my daughter who has perfect eyesight to check the viewfinder and she was also aware of the red fringing. Not sure if this could be a fault on my camera as I have not come across any mention of this problem in all the reviews I've read online. Incidentally, when wearing spectacles it is impossible to get your eye close enough to the viewfinder to see the whole image and screen graphics. I bought this camera to replace my ageing Panasonic Lumix FZ10. This camera has performed well over the last 9 years. The electronic viewfinder is larger, and even wearing spectacles I can see ALL the image and ALL the graphics quite clearly, without any annoying red fringing. I'm returning the Canon to Amazon, so it's back to the drawing board to choose a different superzoom bridge camera which incorporates a larger, higher resolution electronic viewfinder.