Canon PowerShot SX280 HS Review
The
Who the Powershot SX280 HS is for
The Powershot SX280 HS is for the photographer who wants the convenience of a pocketable digital camera with a wide zoom range plus the ability to apply manual control over camera settings when desired but with the option of fully automatic “point and shoot” modes for ease of operation. The 20x zoom (25mm-500mm equivalent) should cover the needs of most photographers and the ability to shoot 1080HD video at 60fps will appeal to those to whom video capability is important. Though larger than some more basic cameras, the SX280 HS is nevertheless capable of slipping easily into a pants pocket, making it a convenient camera to carry at all times. The built in WiFi will appeal to those photographers who want to take advantage of social media sharing of images, while the GPS function will appeal to those who want to know where they have been!
Special Features
The most notable features of the Canon Powershot SX280 HS are:
- A 20x zoom (25-500/3.5-6.8) lens
- Built in WiFi and GPS capability
- 1080p HD video at 60fps
- Continuous shooting of full size images at around 3.8 fps
- High speed burst mode of 7 frames in 0.5s (14fps)
- 6 mode intelligent hybrid IS system
- New DIGIC 6 image processing engine
Using the Powershot SX280 HS
Controls on the SX280 HS should be familiar to previous Powershot owners. The top of the camera has the on/off button along with the shutter release which is surrounded by the zoom toggle. All other controls are on the rear of the camera as shown below.
The main mode control dial is at the upper right, and this dial also serves as the rear thumb grip. The dial needs reasonable effort to turn it, so it’s not likely to be accidentally turned when holding the camera. Directly below the main control dial are the playback button and the dedicated video start/stop button.
Below these is the combined 4 way controller surrounded by control wheel, both of which can be used to navigate the menus and set camera operating parameters in conjunction with the central “set” button. The 4 positions of the controller select menus for exposure compensation (top), flash mode (right), self timer (bottom) and focus mode (left). In playback mode the top position brings up the WiFi menus and the bottom button is used to select images for deletion.
The bottom two control buttons control the amount of information the LCD displays (left) and bring up the main camera control menus (right).
The flash is deployed and retracted automatically when needed or selected (so keep your fingers out of the way!). The front “grip” is a vertcical bar about 1/8" deep on the left side of the front of the camera. Though a little unconventional, it’s quite effective and keeps the overall camera profile slim.
Connection to the camera is made via a mini USB port and a mini HDMI port.
Performance and Usability
The Powershot SX280 HS is fairly responsive by digicam standards. It takes about 1.5 seconds after turning on before you can take the first shot. In single shot mode (where the camera refocuses for each shot) the minimum time between shots is around 1.6 seconds. In continuous shooting mode, shot to shot time with AF is around 1 second. With focus set and fixed on the first shot the frame rate increases to about 3.5 frames/second. AF time is typically in the 0.2-0.4s range depending on the light level (it’s slower in low light).
In HS (high speed) mode the SX280 can shoot at about 14 frames/sec, but only for 7 frames so you have to time your high speed sequence quite accurately since the minimum gap between high speed bursts is around 3-3.5 seconds.
Exposure
In general exposure is pretty accurate as shown in the example below.
SX280 HS, ISO 80, 1/500s @ f6.3, 365mm (equiv)
In the above shot the maxmum white level is around 250 out of 255 so highlight detail is retained. However, like many small sensor digicams, there can be a tendency at times to blow out small highlight areas in bright light. The SX280 does have an i-Contrast mode which is supposed to attempt to correct “excessively dark or bright areas” but it often doesn’t appear to have a great deal of effect on the highlights. A better option is probably to use exposure compensation and check the results on the playback image, which will flash any blown out highlights when the display is set to the histogram mode.
Sharpness
SX280 HS, 500mm (equiv), ISO 125, 1/160 @ f6.8
Lens performance is pretty much average for a wide range zoom on a compact camera. There is color fringing on high contrast edges at times but distortion and vignetting appear fairly well controlled, at least in the JPEG images. How much of this is due to the lens and how much is due to aberration correction in software it’s hard to tell since there is no access to the RAW data captured by the sensor. Tested side by side at the same focal length, Powershot SX 280 images were generally not as sharp as those from the Powershot SX 50 that I reviewed recently (review).
Image Stabilization
Effective image stabilization is essential in a camera with a 500mm equivalent lens and the SX280 HS provides it. I found that I could get sharp images from the majority of shots taken at 1/15s with the lens zoomed out fully.
Noise
SX280 HS, 100% crops from images at ISO 80-6400
Noise levels are typical of what you might expect from a small sensor digital camera. Actually it’s not so much noise that degrades image quality at higher ISO settings but the smearing of detail resulting from the noise reduction algorithms which almost looks like a “watercolor” effect at times at high ISO settings. There is no user control over the amount of noise reduction applied, so you can’t balance noise against detail. Things are pretty good up to around ISO 400, though even at ISO 80 there’s a “texture” to smooth areas of the image. ISO 1600 is usable for small images but I’d regard ISO 3200 and certainly ISO 6400 as for emergency only unless you’re just looking for small images to post on the web or share via social media. For example the image below was shot at ISO 6400 and looks pretty good at 600×450 for the web.
SX280 HS image shot at ISO 6400, downsized to 600×450 pixels
Video
When it comes to video, the specification of the SX280 HS are an improvement over those of previous Powershots. For the first time Canon is providing 1080HD at 60 frames/sec, probably as a consequence of the higher processing and throughput speed of the new DIGIC 6 processor. 60fps produces “smoother” video than 24 or 30fps. There are also options for 1080 HD at 30fps, 720 HD at 30fps and 640×480 VGA at 30fps. Super slow motion is available at 640×480 @ 120fps and 320×200 @ 240fps.
Video quality is pretty good, with optical zoom available during shooting. You can hear the zoom function on the recorded audio but the level is quite low. There’s continuous AF while shooting and two zoom speeds. Exposure is fully automatic when shooting video, so you have no control over aperture or ISO, though you can manually set color balance, exposure compensation and chose color effects such as “Vivid,” “Sepia,” “B&W,” etc..
An issue with video on the SX280 HS with respect to the battery status indication in video mode has been widely reported. The battery status indicator seems to indicate “low battery” status even when the camera seems to have enough power for a lot more video recording. In addition, use of the zoom during video recording with the “low battery” warning on has been observed to shut down the camera.
This problem was first seen when the SX280 HS was released with the initial 1.0.0.0 firmware and seems to have persisted through updates 1.0.1.0 and 1.0.2.0 (issued 06/07/13). The 1.0.2.0 update claims to fix the premature display of low battery in movie mode and increase movie shooting capacity by 20% by reducing the power consumption of the zoom mechanism.
My observations using the 1.1.2.0 firmware were as follows. Starting with a fully charged battery I was able to record a total of 54 minutes of 1080 HD video at 60fps. The battery warning appeared after 22 minutes, so for 32 minutes out of the 54 minute recording time the red “low battery” warning was flashing. After 42 minutes the zoom could not be used without the camera shutting down. Note that for 1080 HD at 60fps the recording will stop when the 4GB file limit is reached (about 16.5 minutes), but can be started up again immediately.
54 minutes of total recording time isn’t bad on a single battery charge and for 42 minutes of that the zoom function caused no problems (when used for maybe 10% of the time), which again is pretty reasonable. The only real issue is that you can’t tell how much recording time is left when the red “low battery” warning flashes. It seems to still come on much too early to give effective information on battery condition. It’s also different in still and video modes. At times, even when the “low battery” warning is flashing in video mode, if you power the camera down and turn in back on in still image mode, the battery indicator will show the battery status as 2 out of 3 bars.
It seems to me that Canon has fixed most of the issues reported with the initial firmware. However I’d still be sure to start out with a fully charged battery and keep another fully charged battery for backup if I intended to shoot a lot of video.
GPS
GPS is easy to use. There are two three GPS functions. First, images can be tagged with GPS information (latitude, longitude, altitude). Second, the camera can act as a GPS logger, saving GPS information to the memory card at regular intervals (aproximately once per minute) so that you can track your travels. Note that GPS logging continues even with the camera turned off and so will drain the battery. Canon say that 2 days of data can be recorded starting with a fully charged battery. The third GPS function is to update the time/date setting of the camera from the received GPS time/date data.
WiFi
WiFi can basically send images from the camera to other WiFi enabled devices such as a tablet, smartphone, computer or printer. There is no capability for operation of the camera via a WiFi connection. Transfers are done via Canon’s free Camera Window software (or App) and the CANON iMAGE GATEWAY.
Usability
There are a few features which other SX series powershots have and the SX280 HS lacks and which would make it a more useful camera. First the SX280 HS has no ability to save images in RAW mode. While this may not be of much concern to more casual photographers, those wanting to extract the maximum image quality from the camera will miss the ability to shoot in RAW. Second, there is no ability to manually change the position of the AF zone. In M, AV, Tv and P modes the AF zone is always in the center of the image. You certainly can focus and recompose (and in fact that’s my own default way of working), but some will miss the capability of manually moving the AF zone around. In auto modes the camera will select off center AF zone(s) itself, but with no user control. Third is the lack of any control over the amount of noise reduction which is applied to the images. Also missing is the support for a remote control (wired or wireless) and there is no hotshoe support for Canon speedlites.
Brief Specifications
Sensor 1/2.3" 12.1MP BSI CMOS Lens 4.5-90/3.5-6.8 (25-500/3.5-6.8 equivalent) Minimum aperture f8 Shutter Speed 15s – 1/3200s (Tv, M), 1s-1/3200s (all other modes) ISO 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400 + auto (80-1600) Size 4.19 × 2.47 × 1.28 in. / 106.4 × 62.8 × 32.6mm Weight 8.22 oz. / 233g (inc. battery) Full Specifications from Canon
Conclusions
SX280 HS, ISO 80, 500mm, 1/125s @f6.8
The
Overall the SX280 HS rates as a good, if not outstanding, camera. It lacks some features that serious photographers might want, but on the other hand it packs a lot of features into a small, pocketable package at a pretty reasonable price.
Alternatives
If you don’t need WiFi, GPS or a pocketable size, I think the
If you do want WiFi, GPS and a pocketable size, the
For a considerably higher price (around $150 more than the SX280 HS) the
