I don't want to push the camera forward and down when I start capturing video. But there's no room on the top deck for another button and this one is nicely positioned in a little cone ring. You just slide your thumb a bit further to the left to reach it.
And on a megazoom, your left hand supports the lens, preventing the camera from dipping down when you press the back panel button. I'm not sure why I'm so taken by a mere Mode dial, but it really has style. It's larger than most and nicely scooped out. It even has a dark red highlight barely visible on the bottom.
Canon should get an award for it, really. On top, the Canon SX40's hot shoe is hidden under a rubber cap, protecting it from corrosion and disturbing the lines of the top hump. It's a little hard to figure out at first, but you just push the cap forward until you see the front of it start to lift and then pull the front up and off toward the back.
Some megazooms have a subdial to set the relevant option aperture, shutter, or both. It's a dandy scroll wheel, but I found myself accidentally pressing in too far as I tried to grip it to spin it left or right to change the aperture or shutter speed. The LCD is a 2. And in fact, I had trouble detecting soft focus in macro shots using the LCD. The EVF has about , dots 67, x 3 , and seems a bit cramped.
It's not uniformly sharp, but was certainly usable. With a 35mm equivalent focal length range of 24mm to mm, the 35x optical zoom on the Canon SX40 HS goes beyond the comfortably hand-holdable even with Canon's optical image stabilization enabled.
Add the 4x digital zoom and that 35x shoots up to x. We actually used that to photograph a noisy squirrel handheld and were able to do it by somehow leading the camera as we pressed the Shutter button. Macro gave us fits. The range is zero to 1. Handily, the lens cap, which hangs by a cord, has a small finger on the inside so you can clip it to the shoulder strap.
In addition to Program mode, it offers a Smart Auto mode. One Scene mode appears on the Mode dial itself Sports along with a Scene mode setting to access others. A Creative Filters and Movie option fill out the Mode dial.
Shutter speeds slower than 1. With the Shutter button half-pressed the shutter speed value appears in orange when the scene "has exceeded the correct exposure limits. With the Shutter button half-pressed the aperture value appears in orange when the scene "has exceeded the correct exposure limits. Smart Auto, which can recognize a variety of scenes and configure the camera for them, is available for video captures too.
The Func. Here's a few of them:. Full HD video. Click image to download A Wind Filter menu option can reduce wind noise. High-Speed Video. Click image to download 4.
A Super Slow Motion option captures video at either fps at x pixels, or fps at x pixels without zoom. Both play back at 30 fps. You can also record iFrame movies. Movies are recorded with H. Optical zoom is available during recording, as is image stabilization.
Mic level can be automatic, or manually adjusted. You can capture stills while recording video by pressing the Shutter button during recording. The camera click and a brief blackout appear in the video clip when you do. Menu System. Canon fans will be instantly familiar with the company's traditional menu system.
And new Canon owners won't take long to figure out the two basic rules:. In addition, the four-way navigator arrow buttons provide a few handy shortcuts as explained in the Controls section above.
A 4GB card will hold 1, Large, Fine images, or 14 min. Canon claims a shooting capacity of shots with the EVF or shots using the LCD or a playback time of nine hours. I was able to go several shoots before recharging, and even then I didn't get a low battery warning. We're glad to see a small plastic cap for the Canon SX40's battery, to avoid accidentally discharging it when it isn't in the camera. And the charger needs no cord to plug into the wall, a blessing for travelers.
The battery compartment door needs no lock or lever, pulling out sideways before it flips open. You may also want to invest in a lens hood for the SX40 HS. Canon continues a policy of providing lens hoods only as an option. There's always a lot more to the cameras we review than any of us has a chance to explore. So I focus primarily on the basic shooting experience in Program mode. But with this year's models, some of the more advanced features have been irresistible.
Handheld Twilight Scene mode is one of them. I'm thrilled to report it has made it onto a Canon after appearing on other brands. It's really a winner for those very dark scenes in which nothing moves. And, in case you haven't guessed, it isn't just for twilight. Or night scenes. I took a shot of a car interior in a garage just to prove it opens up previously unphotographable scenes to the enquiring mind.
High-Speed Video is another. Like macrophotography, it shows you a world you otherwise can't see. But anything that moves is game. Even some of the goofier effects were worth committing to memory.
I like Canon's Fish-Eye effect. Toy Camera and Miniature were fun to play with, too. And just when you thought low-light shooting was out for small digicams, with even ISO suffered loss of detail, here comes a new round of cameras that can handle ISOs from to 3, with grace.
It's pretty clear that the manufacturers have been working on this issue -- and with more success than anyone expected. It's an astonishing 35x optical zoom starting at a very wide 24mm.
You can easily extend the focal length beyond your ability to frame the subject -- even with Canon's image stabilization helping out. And when you add 4x digital zoom to that, you're not going to leave the house without a tripod. Or, like me, you'll just confine yourself to the optical zoom range. Or something short of that. My gallery shot of the Golden Gate Bridge tower is a case in point. So is the flag atop the Ferry building.
The tower was the maximum 35mm focal length equivalent of 3, The Ferry Building shot was a mere The graph below shows the results of our tests. There was no evidence of coloured fringing in test shots of high-contrast subjects.
Close-up performance was competent, although at the extreme end of the Macro range, shots were slightly softer than expected. The camera will focus on subjects that almost touch the front element of the lens in this mode — but only at the widest setting.
At full zoom extension, the minimum focusing distance is around 1. Digital zoom shots captured in bright conditions were sharp and less artefact-affected than we normally see but the limited dynamic range of the sensor tended to compromise highlight areas.
In low light levels, digital zoom shots were much softer, partly as a result of camera shake which is inevitable with such long focal lengths. Contre-jour lighting was handled very well and flare was minimal as long as the light source was prevented from shining directly into the lens. Barrel distortion could be seen in wide-angle shots but became negligible at a focal length of around 15mm.
Very slight pincushioning could be detected at the 50mm focal length setting. The auto white balance failed to eliminate the orange cast of incandescent lighting but produced close-to-neutral colours under fluorescent lights.
The pre-sets successfully removed the inherent colour casts of both types of lighting, delivering a neutral colour balance. Manual measurement produced similar results. The Full HD mode gave the SX40 HS an advantage in video quality over the SX30 IS, which is to be expected, but otherwise clips looked similar in quality and optimal performance only occurred with brightly-lit subjects. Soundtracks were similar to those from the SX30 IS and no wind cut filter is available to suppress wind noise.
Autofocusing was generally good but the AF system had trouble keeping up with fast pans and fast-moving subjects. Focus tracking performed well at shorter focal lengths but the system encountered problems towards the longer end of the zoom range. The high-speed modes were interesting and more usable than similar files from the Fujifilm X10 we have just reviewed.
Although not large enough to fill a typical monitor or TV screen, clips are big enough to be used for basic motion analysis. Overall response times were similar to the SX30 IS. The test camera powered up ready for shooting in just under one second and shot-to-shot times averaged two seconds without flash and approximately 2.
On average, it took 3. We measured an average capture lag of 0. The High-speed Burst HQ mode recorded 10 shots in just over one second. It took roughly four seconds to process this burst. In the normal continuous shooting mode, 10 Large frames were captured in 3. It took 3. Digital zoom; Stabilisation test; Macro mode; 4. Backlighting; 4. P shooting mode; Still frame from HD video clip recorded at x pixels. Still frame from VGA video clip.
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