Canon PowerShot SX230 HS - Review Scroll down to the very end for a purchase link! The Canon PowerShot SX230 HS is the latest incarnation of Canon's highly popular pocket super-zoom. Announced in February 2011 to replace the year-old PowerShot SX210 IS, it's the first SX model to carry the HS suffix. A step-down in resolution from the 14 Megapixel SX210, the SX230's 12.1 Megapixel backilluminated CMOS sensor and Digic 4 processor provide excellent low light performance combined with 1080p HD video recording The SX230 HS sticks with the 14x optical zoom of its predecessor and the 3in screen, though the display resolution has been increased to 460k dots. Crucially, it adds a GPS receiver, the lack of which put its predecessor at a disadvantage compared with the earlier Sony Cyber-shot HX5 and Panasonic Lumix TZ10 / ZS7. Note: the PowerShot SX220 HS, released alongside the SX230 HS (in Europe only) lacks the GPS but is otherwise identical.
Design and controls The PowerShot SX230 HS looks similar to to its predecessor and is almost exactly the same size and weight. It's available in pink, blue or black and the soap bar shape with a cupped silver edge both looks stylish and provides a secure and stable grip. The tell-tale difference between the SX230 HS and its predecessor is the bulge on the top edge just to the left of the shutter release labelled GPS. There's one other important difference: the earlier SX210's zoom 'nipple' experiment has been abandoned with the return of a conventional zoom collar surround on the shutter release. The stereo mics have been relocated from the top to the front panel and the movie button no longer doubles a custom function button and that's the extent of the external changes. 
The Flash on the PowerShot SX230 HS is a pop-up type located on the left end of the top panel. Regardless of the settings, even if it's disabled or you're in a movie exposure mode, it pops up when the camera is
powered on, which is a bit of a nuisance, but it's easily pushed back into position. The problem is you then have to pop it back up manually if you want to use it even in auto mode and I think that's simply poor design. How else would you describe a system that automatically activates when not required and vice versa? It's also something just about every review criticised on the earlier SX210 IS, so it's disappointing not to find it resolved here. The flash has 'Auto' (fires when required as long as you remembered to pop it up) forced on, forced off (superfluous as popping it down does the same thing) and slow synchro modes, and has a quoted maximum distance of 3.5 metres. Smart flash automatically adjusts power depending on the proximity and brightness of the subject and recycles in around two to four seconds. The SX230 HS has a 3in widescreen display with 16:9 proportions. While ideal for shooting HD movies, best-quality 4:3 stills only occupy the central portion of the screen with thick black bars containing info icons running down either side. But if you're shooting lots of HD video, it's great. With much of the competition opting for 4:3 screens this is something that sets the SX230 HS apart and along with 1080 24p HD video will increase its appeal for film makers. The 460k dot resolution results in a crisp detailed image that's bright, contrasty and easy to see from most angles though in bright sunlight, like all screens, it's a bit of a struggle. The controls, including the mode dial, dedicated movie record button playback, display and menu buttons and the control wheel are located to the right of the screen on a subtly contoured panel that looks cramped, but, perhaps due to the contoured surface, doesn't feel so. 
The on/off button is positioned on the bevelled top edge just above the mode dial. The only slightly unusual thing about the controls is the control wheel's lack of labels. The wheel doubles up as a menu navigator - rotate to scroll - and a four-way one-touch selector for flash, selftimer, macro and exposure compensation, an icon showing the layout appears on the screen when the wheel is lightly pressed - a great idea once you get used to it. A flap on the right edge covers the mini HDMI and A/V / USB ports and the combined card and battery compartment on the bottom of the camera takes SD (HC XC) cards. The NB-5L battery pack provides enough power for an unimpressive 210 shots. With the optional WP-DC42 waterproof casing you can dive with the SX230 HS to a depth of 40 metres.
Lens and stabilisation The PowerShot SX230 HS has a 14x stabilised optical zoom with a 35mm equivalent range of 28 - 392mm. It's the same lens with the same field of view as it predecessor and, like the SX210 before it, the SX230 HS lacks the super-wide angle field of view provided by competitor models like the Sony Cyber-shot HX9V, Panasonic Lumix TZ20 / ZS10 and Nikon COOLPIX S9100. But where the earlier SX210 could outreach its competitors at the telephoto end of the range that's no longer the case with the latest PowerShot SX230 HS, as its telephoto advantage over the HX9V and TZ20 / ZS10 is negligible and the COOLPIX S9100 outguns it with a 450mm telephoto. While a slightly wider field of view would be nice, the PowerShot SX230 HS nonetheless provides an impressive zoom range in a pocketable format. The zoom is smooth and quiet and the two-speed zoom collar provides a good degree of control. Optical image stabilisation has four still image modes - off, continuous, Shoot only and panning. Canon's optical image stabilisation has proved to be very effective on earlier models and the claim of four stops of stabilisation for the PowerShot SX230 HS is perfectly credible. I tested the SX230 HS stabilisation by taking a series of shots with the lens set to its maximum focal length with the stabilisation turned off and set to Continuous. The crops below show the results.
Handling The PowerShot SX230 HS starts up in around one and a half seconds extending the three-section zoom to 24mm. Zoomed to its full telephoto range the barrel extends to an impressive 51mm. We've already talked about the efficiancy of Canon's scene detection and its Face AiAF system is no less capable. In the absence of faces it defaults to single centre area AF and you can reduce the size of the AF area for spot focussing or select tracking AF for non-human moving subjects. The Func menu, activated from the control wheel central button almost negates the need to access the two-tabbed menu system and is logically organised providing only the relevant controls for the selected exposure mode. In continuous shooting mode the PowerShot SX230 HS can manage 2.2fps at full resolution- a little slower than the quoted 3.2 fps. In the High speed burst mode, however, it manages a much more respectable 6.5fps, albeit at a reduced 3M (1984 x 1488) resolution.
The PowerShot SX230 HS has a built-in GPS receiver which appends geopositional data to the image and can also produce a track log that can be plotted on a map, though in this mode the GPS is always on and consequently drains the battery more quickly. In use the GPS wasn't always able to lock onto a sufficient number of satellites to provide positional data and on occassions the data it did provide wasn't particularly accurate, sometimes varying from the actual position by tens of metres. The PowerShot SX230 HS has a 12.1 Megapixel CMOS sensor which produces images with a maximum size of 4000 x 3000 pixels at one of two compression settings. The best quality Fine setting produces images with a file size of around 3MB. Â Â
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