Canon Powershot SX70 20.3MP Digital Camera 65x Optical Zoom Lens 4K Video 3-inch LCD Tilt Screen (Black)

I love this camera. It is everything I wanted in a versatile camera. Easy to carry, the telephoto is great. I'm a birder and have taken some great shots with this. I have been impressed with the quality of the images and have no complaints with ease of use. Canon delivers even with this size camera.

The image quality is actually pretty good for a camera of this type. You can make decent 13X19 prints if you don't crop to much. It does not compete with a DSLR when it comes to image quality, but it makes a decent travel camera for snapshots and an occasional enlargement. It is lightweight and easy to carry around while traveling. It is important to understand that with a powerful zoom lens like it has, you have to be aware that it is sometimes difficult to get good photos because of camera movement, which is sometimes a problem with a lens with this much magnification.

If any of you have been hesitant in getting into photography because of the high price of DSLR cameras I think I have a solution for you. I have been experimenting with some of the point and shoot cameras on the market. I set a cost limit of $500 or less on the cameras to experiment with. Cameras in the price range are often referred to as "bridge cameras" - the step between very basic cameras and the higher priced DSLR cameras. That is in comparison to the more than $2000 cost of a DSLR setup. The first cameras I tested were disappointing. Not so much in the photo quality but the effort by manufacturers trying to pack too much into the camera and much of it did not work smoothly. I don't like gimmicks. All those cameras went back. The latest camera I have been testing is the Canon PowerShot SX70. This camera can be bought for under $500 (you might have to shop around a little to get that price). What was really looking for was a camera I could grab and shoot when there was not time to setup the larger cameras. The two pictures below were shot this morning and the big feature here is these photos are not cropped in anyway. The PowerShot has a very long focus ability which was attractive to me as I shoot a lot of wildlife photos. That of course is good and bad as when extended to the full focal length of over 1000mm it is virtually impossible to hand hold the camera and still get crisp shots like these. For these two photos I braced the camera against the window frame on the car. So is this the perfect camera - no. But for someone who just wants to be able to capture memories without the expense of a DSLR camera this camera fits the bill.

We bought this camera for a safari we were planning to take this fall. Unfortunately, that had to be delayed. On the plus side this is giving me more time to learn the camera. I’ve been very impressed with the zoom capabilities and I’ve gotten some delightful pictures of butterflies on the neighbor’s bushes and hummingbirds on our feeders. The camera is pretty quick to learn and the auto feature works well. My only complaint is I wish it worked better in lower light conditions, especially on high speed shots, but I know that the shutter speed/iso trade off is always a challenge, especially in a fixed lens camera. So th at is what I am working on most, seeing what settings will work at dusk and dawn and how slow I will have to make the shutter speed recognizing that I will sacrifice the stop action effects that a high shutter can get me.

Compact powerhouse. Gives me all features I was looking for raw shooting, exposure compensation features and great quality. be careful when lens is fully extended as it doesn’t appear to be that stable

I got it brand new for a reason. I also own other Canon products that are old and still going. You'd think any camera over $500 that's brand new would work, right? I wasn't expecting mind blowing pictures for that amount, but I wanted something better than my Canon PowerShot SX720 HS (which was cheaper, a few years old, has been through desert and ocean trips, abused, and still works). First day, I was pretty happy with the camera. Booted right up. Zoom was nice. Having a screen and viewfinder was nice. Read the manual to help guide me through what was what and set up. Zero problems. So I made sure it had the latest firmware update, made sure everything was working, turned it off, and I was going to really test it out the next day so I made sure the battery it came with was fully charged. 2nd day, booted it up and started taking pictures. Soon after the screen started acting up in different ways (lines, blurring, miscolored screen), the camera froze, and then shut down. Odd, so I started making going through all the trouble shooting procedures. I followed one video's suggestion and it worked. Took pictures with no problem. Next day, it acted like day #2 all over again. I then ordered a new Canon battery for it and new SD card like so many videos and forums suggested thinking maybe I could use the first trick but with new items just in case something was corrupted. Didn't work. I've been trying everything to get it to turn back on just to get the zoom lens retracted and it still doesn't want to turn on. I really wanted this camera to come back to life b/c I really liked it when it worked.I'm highly disappointed at the quality control for Canon at this point. Returning item.