Canon Launches New Flagship Ultra-Zoom

2008.09.17

Another exciting announcement from Canon is the launch of the Canon Powershot SX10 IS. This 10 megapixels ultra-zoom fixed-lens digital camera features a 20X stabilized optical zoom lens, matching the zoom-ratio of the Olympus SP-570 with a slightly narrower field-of-view, 28-560mm vs 26-520mm. Like most current ultra-zooms, the SX10 IS provides full-manual controls, VGA-resolution and movie-recording. As the successor of the Powershot S5 IS, this new ultra-zoom keeps zero-distance macro focusing, stereo-sound audio recording and use of standard AA batteries.

Simultaneously, Canon announced in Japan the Powershot SX1 IS which is a CMOS version of the SX10 IS. This alternate ultra-zoom keeps the same stabilized 20X optical zoom lens and full-manual controls but adds 4 FPS continuous shooting and 1080p HD movie-recording. It is perplexing to see that this seemingly superior ultra-zoom features a smaller and lower-resolution viewfinder.

Readers will wonder why the Canon Powershot SX1 IS is not being launched simultaneously in North America. Truly, I am wondering this too but there are easy guess as to why. The first possibility is a supply issue, the compact CMOS sensor required by the SX1 is one-of-a-kind and Canon may not be ready to produce it in adequate quantities initially. The second possibility is to use the Japanese market as testing platform. Japanese buyers are known to be early adopters and not mind as much trying on new products despite their quirks. In either case, the SX1 or a variant of it should probably be available worldwide shortly.

• Digital Camera