CANON POWERSHOT SX260 HS and SX280 HS
I also have a small Canon Powershot SX260 HS, 12 Megapixel Camera which has Image Stabilization and a lens going from wide-angle to 20x optical zoom. This is a very small camera loaded with big features, and is actually my newest camera. I bought it to replace my Canon SX210. I dropped the 210 a few times and it wasn't working right anymore. This SX260 is sharper, has better color depth, and produces very good telephoto pictures. The HS stands for high-sensitivity and uses a CMOS sensor. Recently I replaced this with a Canon SX280 which operates at a much faster speed.

One thing I might mention about telephoto lenses on these new cameras, is the telephoto range is rather misleading. As a selling point, they advertise the range from wide-angle to a multiplier of that wide-angle number. The lens on my SX260 is 4.5mm to 90mm, (that's 25mm to 500mm in 35mm equivalent). They get the equivalent by dividing 35mm by the sensor size and multiplying the true millimeters by that. It's true that 500 divided by 25 gives you 20 times enlargement, but that is not true magnification of an image. Because 50mm is considered the normal standard shot, then 25mm is only half that, anything less than 50mm is considered wide-angle (reverse magnification), so they are saying 20 times the the reduced magnification. We must see how much the lens magnifies beyond 50mm. Dividing 500mm (35mm equivalent) by 50 shows a true 10x magnification. So the SX260 really produces only 10x magnification at full zoom. That's comparable to looking though 10x binoculars.



CANON POWERSHOT SX210
Before buying the SX260 I was using a Canon Powershot SX210, a 14 Megapixel Camera which has Image Stabilization, and a lens going from wide-angle to 14x optical zoom. This is a very small camera that produced very good pictures. I bought it to replace my Canon SD700 Digital Elph.

My little SD700 Digital Elph did pretty good for normal and wide-angle, but it didn't produce telephoto shots very well. It didn't take good videos either, but the SX210 and newer SX260 produce fantastic HD videos.

The SX210 produced telephoto shots pretty good for a little camera, especially if I used a tripod or monopod to steady it. With 14 megapixels I could also crop pictures to enlarge the photo, and still have fairly good resolution, something that the SD700 didn't do well at all, with only 6 Megapixels. The newer SX260 does the telephoto even better, almost as good as my professional camera and expensive lenses.

I liked the SX210 so much, that I began taking it on all my hikes and bike rides. It is so small and lightweight compared to my large camera, that it was a joy to carry, yet produces quite good photos. The more I used it the better I liked it. Now with the even better SX260, I carry it everywhere I go.

CANON SD700 DIGITAL ELPH
As I mentioned above, I was using a smaller camera, a Canon SD700 IS Digital Elph 6 megapixel with 4x optical and 4x digital zoom. This little camera comes with Image Stability built in and a large view screen, yet small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. The reason I have the little camera is so that I can carry it anywhere I go. My larger cameras are bulky and heavy.