Last week I decided to splurge and buy myself a new camera. I went with the Canon SX120IS point and shoot (I don't want to mess with a DSLR). So far I have been very impressed with the quality of the images it takes. The image stabilization makes the 10x optical zoom useful without needing a tripod. It does eat batteries though (I plan on getting a decent set of rechargables).

I have taken the camera flying a couple of times now, so here are a few shots. These were all taken on the full auto setting..

Pine Mountain, on the KY/VA border:

The same photo run through Photoshop..


Looking down on a B737


A crop from the image above.


Flying the King Air on a short hop to Dayton yesterday.




I really need to learn more about some of the different modes this camera offers. The main weakness I have seen so far apart from the battery requirements) is that it takes a while to transfer a 10mp shot to the SDHC card, so rapid fire shots are not really possible at that resolution.

nice pics, looks like a westjet 737

Very nice pics, Paul. I've got the previous model, the SX110IS, and find it to be a good carry-around camera, but it is a little slow and as you say, eats batteries, especially if you use the flash much (that slows it down more, too).

Fortunately I don't use the flash very often. I bought a set of the more expensive Energizer Lithium AA batteries and they seem to be holding up better. I still need to get some rechargeables though. The IS function really helps when flying..

Not sure if it was Pine Mountain specifically, but that pic reminds me of our flight up to the Dayton Airshow this year in our helo. Of course, we were a tad bit lower...looking up at that ridge line.

Neat pic.

Hello Paul!

nice set of images
I do have a SX10IS as a secondary camera and I am quite happy with it either;
I also used this baby for my first try in astrophotography recently, aiming at the moon;
quite interestingly, you can get decent moon shots with the SX10IS if you know how to use such a compact zoom cam;
keeping the ISO low, the focus set to manual and having turned digital zoom up to the full 2,4x power, the results are quite nice

so if you plan to try your cam for astrophotography, please post the results and the settings you have used

cheers and have fun with the new toy
BL

BL, lets see your Moon shots!

Rubbish Paul!

You never get any external flying shots, just press the S button!

Ah, but I was flying the 737 when I took that shot.

very nice Paul, there's been times when I wish I still had a P&S just easier to walk around with at times.

Looking forward to more pics from you.

Thanks Dave . There really isn't room for a DSLR and associated lenses in a King Air or Citation cockpit. The SX120IS is larger than the SD630 ELF that I was using before, but it is still managable, and the IS is worth it's weight in gold when flying.

Some day I will have to get my wife to teach me how to use a DSLR. She has a 8MP Rebel XT and takes some really nice photo's with it. I find it a little amusing that I have no problem using a dedicated CCD camera for Astro-imaging but have no clue how to use a 'real' camera .

Always fun to look down on the airliners.. Of course..they are passing you..but still..LOL..

Chris, this one was going in the opposite direction, so at least I can claim it wasn't overtaking us... but the 'Slowtation' has earned it's nickname within the business jet world . Having said that the straight winged Citations do have their good points (but my heart still belongs to the King Air B200 ).

I am using my new Canon PowerShot SX200IS for one week now. The cam still has not totally convinced me, because high zoom levels + bad contrast (winter days) have negative effects on the picture quality at the borders of a picture. There are green and violet shadows/cords going away from an object. What i do not know, is if those effects are due to the optics or the sensor. The sensor seems to be a weak point in comparison to the much more expensive Canon G11. But hey, you get what you pay

What definitely convinces me though, is the tremendous zoom level, and the speed the pictures are saved with. I bought an ultra-fast Sandisk Extreme SDHC Class 10 card with 16 GB, which has a data ratio of 30 MB/s. Even in the highest resolution (12mp fine quality), pictures are saved very fast to the card, with almost no delay!! Also no stuttering problems with HD-720-videos, as some users of that cam report.

Did you turn off the picture demo after you shoot a pic? I have turned it off for now in order to be able to do faster shooting sequences.

What i cannot recommend by the way, is the Transcend 16 GB SDHC card, which often has data losses.

Falcon99, thanks for your observations on the camera! I am using a PNY Optima 8GB SDHC card. One thing I didn't think about was that my Laptop and Desktop PC card readers are too old to read the SDHC cards. I ended up buying a cheap USB SD/SDHC card reader.

I haven't noticed any of the colour issues you mentioned, but it is most likely that I am not looking hard enough (I am a point and shoot kind of guy). The main criticism I have with the camera is the battery life. The more expensive lithium batteries do seem to work a lot better though, and are probably more cost effective than using Alkaline's.

I haven't turned off the picture preview option, but I may do as you suggested.

Regrettably i still have no experience about how fast the battery is unloading. Mine has the Canon NB-5L, which is said to unload very quickly, too. In other forums, people report that they can barely shot more than 100 pics, before being forced to change. That's the reason why i bought myself 3 replacement accumulators, which should be enough for one day, even when photographing a lot.

To show what i meant: That's one pic with full 12x zoom level. I had to resize it, or it would not upload. It shows the Starnberg lake in Bavaria, Germany.

The picture underneath shows the corner on the left bottom of that same pic, unresized. That does look inprecise and not that good to me. But i think that is a problem, which will only occur in some situations and not disturb on the most pictures.

Falcon99, this is just a guess, but I'm wondering if it's an ISO issue. I checked the EXIF info on that shot, and it's at ISO250, which is probably starting to push it on a small CCD sensor camera like that. That's going to show more noise, especially in gray and dark areas.

It would be interesting to see if your results would be any different if you locked it to a lower ISO, maybe 100 or so.

Hello Arthonon,
thanks for that hint! Other users also reported that they had problems using the SX200IS in darker areas.

I used the automatic mode for that shot, but i'll retry with manual ISO settings. Just like Paul Rix, the threadstarter, i may also have to learn a lot about the numerous settings of that camera.