Canon PowerShot SX 60 IS 100x Zoom Mentioned Again [CR1]

Lee Jay

EOS 7D Mark II
Sep 22, 2011
2,250
175
The two biggest things about the SX50 that are disappointing are the lens speed, and the viewfinder.

I doubt a wider focal length range will make the lens speed better. Worse is more likely.

The EVF on the SX50 isn't bad, but it isn't great either. It's biggest problem is the optics in front of the microdisplay (the "eyepiece", if you will). The thing suffers from a horrible lack of field flatness making the image of the microdisplay downright blurry in the corners. If you adjust the diopter to get sharp corners, it's blurry in the center. If you compromise, it's somewhat soft all over. I'd love to see better optics and a higher resolution microdisplay. It doesn't have to be bigger or brighter to please me.
 
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Jan 29, 2011
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Don Haines said:
100 said:
I’m sorry, but megapixels are not a factor in focal length equivalence.

But it does factor into the number of pixels on target....

An SX50 puts 4000 pixels across a full image. At it's long end (1200mm equivalent) it puts as many pixels on target as a 12Mpixel FF camera through a 1200mm lens.... or as many pixels on target as a 12Mpixel crop camera with a 750mm (1200/1.6) lens... or as many pixels on target as a 70D with a 548mm (1200/1.6)*(4000/5472).... The extra pixels allows you to crop the image an additional 1.37X to give the same number of pixels on Target.

That only works if the smaller pixels are "as good" as the bigger pixels. They never are. In good light the difference is normally small enough to not be a major issue, pretty much any P&S can take fantastic colourful, rich, detailed, and sharp images at 100iso and good daylight. Start to lower the light levels and the smaller pixels always start to show their lesser capabilities.

Look at this link from 2008.
 
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Lee Jay

EOS 7D Mark II
Sep 22, 2011
2,250
175
privatebydesign said:
Don Haines said:
100 said:
I’m sorry, but megapixels are not a factor in focal length equivalence.

But it does factor into the number of pixels on target....

An SX50 puts 4000 pixels across a full image. At it's long end (1200mm equivalent) it puts as many pixels on target as a 12Mpixel FF camera through a 1200mm lens.... or as many pixels on target as a 12Mpixel crop camera with a 750mm (1200/1.6) lens... or as many pixels on target as a 70D with a 548mm (1200/1.6)*(4000/5472).... The extra pixels allows you to crop the image an additional 1.37X to give the same number of pixels on Target.

That only works if the smaller pixels are "as good" as the bigger pixels. They never are. In good light the difference is normally small enough to not be a major issue, pretty much any P&S can take fantastic colourful, rich, detailed, and sharp images at 100iso and good daylight. Start to lower the light levels and the smaller pixels always start to show their lesser capabilities.

Look at this link from 2008.

That's true, but realize that the SX50 was at f/6.5 and the 100-400L was at f/11, which was stopped down due to optical softness. That means the SX50 was at ISO 100 and the T2i was closer to ISO 400 for the same shutter speed (I don't have the original with me so I can't check). This goes a lot way toward equalizing the pixel performance.
 
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Jan 29, 2011
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Not really.

The SX50 has a 3.48 crop factor to the APS-C, it has 5.68 crop factor to a ff camera.

For equivalence a 7D and 400mm @ f11 and 400iso should be SX50 115mm @ f3.16 and 115iso.

At these settings, if the pixel level performance is equal, the images will be identical, including diffraction. But that was not my point, in good light they might be, but in anything but good light they will not be.
 
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Don Haines

Beware of cats with laser eyes!
Jun 4, 2012
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privatebydesign said:
Don Haines said:
100 said:
I’m sorry, but megapixels are not a factor in focal length equivalence.

But it does factor into the number of pixels on target....

An SX50 puts 4000 pixels across a full image. At it's long end (1200mm equivalent) it puts as many pixels on target as a 12Mpixel FF camera through a 1200mm lens.... or as many pixels on target as a 12Mpixel crop camera with a 750mm (1200/1.6) lens... or as many pixels on target as a 70D with a 548mm (1200/1.6)*(4000/5472).... The extra pixels allows you to crop the image an additional 1.37X to give the same number of pixels on Target.

That only works if the smaller pixels are "as good" as the bigger pixels. They never are. In good light the difference is normally small enough to not be a major issue, pretty much any P&S can take fantastic colourful, rich, detailed, and sharp images at 100iso and good daylight. Start to lower the light levels and the smaller pixels always start to show their lesser capabilities.

Look at this link from 2008.

70D... 5472 pixels in 22.3mm, or 245.4 pixels per mm....
SX-50.. 4000 pixels in 6.17mm, or 648.3 pixels per mm....

We are not dealing with smaller pixels, we are dealing with pixels having 7 times the area, so we are not only cropping away pixels to have the same number on target, those remaining pixels are also far bigger.
 
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Lee Jay

EOS 7D Mark II
Sep 22, 2011
2,250
175
privatebydesign said:
Not really.

The SX50 has a 3.48 crop factor to the APS-C, it has 5.68 crop factor to a ff camera.

For equivalence a 7D and 400mm @ f11 and 400iso should be SX50 115mm @ f3.16 and 115iso.

At these settings, if the pixel level performance is equal, the images will be identical, including diffraction. But that was not my point, in good light they might be, but in anything but good light they will not be.

And my point was just about the optical quality of the lens in the SX50 at the long end.
 
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Jan 29, 2011
10,675
6,121
Don Haines said:
privatebydesign said:
Don Haines said:
100 said:
I’m sorry, but megapixels are not a factor in focal length equivalence.

But it does factor into the number of pixels on target....

An SX50 puts 4000 pixels across a full image. At it's long end (1200mm equivalent) it puts as many pixels on target as a 12Mpixel FF camera through a 1200mm lens.... or as many pixels on target as a 12Mpixel crop camera with a 750mm (1200/1.6) lens... or as many pixels on target as a 70D with a 548mm (1200/1.6)*(4000/5472).... The extra pixels allows you to crop the image an additional 1.37X to give the same number of pixels on Target.

That only works if the smaller pixels are "as good" as the bigger pixels. They never are. In good light the difference is normally small enough to not be a major issue, pretty much any P&S can take fantastic colourful, rich, detailed, and sharp images at 100iso and good daylight. Start to lower the light levels and the smaller pixels always start to show their lesser capabilities.

Look at this link from 2008.

70D... 5472 pixels in 22.3mm, or 245.4 pixels per mm....
SX-50.. 4000 pixels in 6.17mm, or 648.3 pixels per mm....

We are not dealing with smaller pixels, we are dealing with pixels having 7 times the area, so we are not only cropping away pixels to have the same number on target, those remaining pixels are also far bigger.

Sorry, that makes no sense; you are comparing the same number of pixels, that are different sizes! hat means you make an assumption that the different sized pixels are equal, that is a false assumption in most shooting situations.
 
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Jan 29, 2011
10,675
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Lee Jay said:
privatebydesign said:
Not really.

The SX50 has a 3.48 crop factor to the APS-C, it has 5.68 crop factor to a ff camera.

For equivalence a 7D and 400mm @ f11 and 400iso should be SX50 115mm @ f3.16 and 115iso.

At these settings, if the pixel level performance is equal, the images will be identical, including diffraction. But that was not my point, in good light they might be, but in anything but good light they will not be.

And my point was just about the optical quality of the lens in the SX50 at the long end.

You can only take an image with the SX50 lens with the SX50, you can't compare lenses without using different sensors.

Before I offend everybody in the thread.

Smaller cameras per pixel performance is remarkable, especially in good light. The SX50 style camera makes a lot of sense to me, but it will never come close to the performance of a bigger sensor in less than ideal conditions.

That is all I was trying to say.
 
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Jul 21, 2010
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Don Haines said:
100 said:
I’m sorry, but megapixels are not a factor in focal length equivalence.

But it does factor into the number of pixels on target....

An SX50 puts 4000 pixels across a full image. At it's long end (1200mm equivalent) it puts as many pixels on target as a 12Mpixel FF camera through a 1200mm lens.... or as many pixels on target as a 12Mpixel crop camera with a 750mm (1200/1.6) lens... or as many pixels on target as a 70D with a 548mm (1200/1.6)*(4000/5472).... The extra pixels allows you to crop the image an additional 1.37X to give the same number of pixels on Target.

That's fine, as long as you keep in mind that smaller pixels need to be enlarged more for matched output, and that additional enlargement has a detrimental impact on IQ. Plus, there's more noise even at base ISO.
 
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Don Haines

Beware of cats with laser eyes!
Jun 4, 2012
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privatebydesign said:
Lee Jay said:
privatebydesign said:
Not really.

The SX50 has a 3.48 crop factor to the APS-C, it has 5.68 crop factor to a ff camera.

For equivalence a 7D and 400mm @ f11 and 400iso should be SX50 115mm @ f3.16 and 115iso.

At these settings, if the pixel level performance is equal, the images will be identical, including diffraction. But that was not my point, in good light they might be, but in anything but good light they will not be.

And my point was just about the optical quality of the lens in the SX50 at the long end.

You can only take an image with the SX50 lens with the SX50, you can't compare lenses without using different sensors.

Before I offend everybody in the thread.

Smaller cameras per pixel performance is remarkable, especially in good light. The SX50 style camera makes a lot of sense to me, but it will never come close to the performance of a bigger sensor in less than ideal conditions.

That is all I was trying to say.

100 percent agreement!

I'd also like to add that the AF of the SX-50 is far worse than any DSLR and there is also an annoying shutter lag... but I re-iterate, for a toy camera it sure works great!
 
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A friend of mine had a Sony 15X zoom, and was excited at first. But when Sony launched other models with more zoom he felt inferior and bought a 2.2X teleconverter. It was a teleconverter any brand he curled up in front of the lens hood, and chromatic aberration caused abominable. With the teleconverter the camera angle was equivalent to 1000mm vision, and he was pleased. ::) But after a while he felt inferior when he saw that there were already cameras with more zoom. :-\

I think those people who purchase a superzoom camera should stay a few years without researching new models and just enjoy your camera. But I gave some advice to my friend: :-X "Never buy a DSLR, or you will be very poor." :p Perhaps a psychologist could help you?
 
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Don Haines

Beware of cats with laser eyes!
Jun 4, 2012
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Canada
As promised, I took an SX-50 and a 60D with a Tamron 150-600 outside to see how they stacked up against each other for bird photography.

The goal is to place a blue-jay sized object about 40 feet away and to see how much detail the various lenses can resolve.

The last time I tried this was with the SX-50, a 70-200F4IS, and a Sigma 120-400.... on that test the SX-50 won, the 70-200F4IS came in second, and the Sigma 120-400 was a distant third.

Here are the reduced size originals... SX-50, Tamron 150-600, and Tamron 150-600 and 1.4X teleconverter.
 

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Don Haines

Beware of cats with laser eyes!
Jun 4, 2012
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Here is what the same scene from each image looks like when enlarged to the same size.... SX-50, Tamron 150-600, and Tamron 150-600 and 1.4X teleconverter.

In this case, it seems like the Tamron with the teleconverter resolves the most detail, the bare Tamron is second, and the SX-50 comes in last.... but when you consider I paid $300 for the SX-50 on sale and it fits into a coat pocket, it is a surprisingly good performance for such a camera.
 

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Don Haines said:
Here is what the same scene from each image looks like when enlarged to the same size.... SX-50, Tamron 150-600, and Tamron 150-600 and 1.4X teleconverter.
In this case, it seems like the Tamron with the teleconverter resolves the most detail, the bare Tamron is second, and the SX-50 comes in last.... but when you consider I paid $300 for the SX-50 on sale and it fits into a coat pocket, it is a surprisingly good performance for such a camera.
Thank you for testing. The Tamron + teleconverter is very impressive. Yes, I have to admit that modest SX50 does a good job, and is unrivaled in convenience.
 
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Jan 27, 2013
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Don Haines said:
As promised, I took an SX-50 and a 60D with a Tamron 150-600 outside to see how they stacked up against each other for bird photography.

Don,

thank you very much!

looks like I might be able to talk myself into, and at least mildly justify the Tamron after all :)

then again, this was the 1200mm SX50, not the 2000mm SX60... so I will have to talk myself into the extender as well :D
or realize that I really don't need the 600mm... but that wont happen ;)

btw, also thank you for testing another thing... I believe that I read somewhere, that the Tamron is not compatible with extenders... now, I realize that there wont be any AF, but it seems like it is working otherwise (at least with the 1,4x)
 
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