With a compact body and 30x zoom lens, the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS looks like the ideal bridge camera to purchase. It’s the successor to the PowerShot SX500 IS. Although the designs are almost identical, a lot has been added to SX510, starting with a 12MP CMOS sensor that can also record videos at 1080p. Besides that, the camera also features Wi-Fi connectivity and geo-tagging. It’s priced just under Rs. 15,000* which also makes it one of the cheapest bridge cameras out there. Is it good enough to take on the other high-zoom cameras though? There’s only one way to find out.
Design and Build
The Canon PowerShot SX510 HS like its predecessor is pretty compact for a high-zoom camera. Even with its 30x zoom lens, it hardly weighs 349g. That makes it really easy to click photos using just one hand. Unlike the SX500, Canon has traded the glossy look for a matte finish. This makes the camera feel sturdy and also adds a little to the grip. Speaking of which, Canon has also added a thin rubber coating at the right that makes it easy to hold the camera.
The rest of the camera exactly the same as the PowerShot SX500 IS. The camera has the same 3-inch screen at the back. We would have liked a tilt screen as most bridge cameras today have one. The button layout doesn’t look cluttered, even with the limited. All the buttons have a decent size and there is plenty of space between them as well. The four directional buttons next to the screen also have a dial around them. It lets you scroll through the interface and change settings with ease.
The biggest complain we have with the SX510 is the flash. It doesn’t have an automatic pop-up option; it doesn’t even have a pop-up button. Instead, you have to lift it up yourself, which we might add, doesn’t take a lot of effort.
Features
The biggest upgrade you'll see on the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS is its new 12MP CMOS sensor. This not only allows it to perform better in terms of picture quality but also lets it record full HD videos at 24fps. The camera comes with the same 30x zoom lens as the SX500 IS. The lens has a focal length of 4.3mm - 129mm (equivalent to 24mm – 720mm lens on a 35mm format), which is quite good to take both landscape and close-up shots. To help you take still photos at 30x zoom, the lens comes equipped with Canon’s own optical image stabilization called Intelligent IS. This should help reduce blur in photos that are clicked at maximum zoom under shaky situations.
The lens offers an aperture range of F3.4 on wide angle to F8.0 on telephoto. It’s a little less than what we expected it to be. It’s good enough to shoot macro and close-up photos but it might not be appropriate for landscape photography, where you need to focus on a wider region, in your frame. Shutter speed range is pretty much standard ranging from 1 second to 1/1600th of a second. It’s not the best you can get from a high-zoom camera but should be good enough for most situations. On manual mode, you can bump up the shutter speed up to 15 seconds, but you will need a tripod to take sharp photos at this kind of shutter speed. ISO sensitivity settings on the camera ranges from 80-3200, which is decent, but less compared to other bridge camera.
Auto-focus is usually set in the centre of the frame, but you can change it to give more priority to faces or even track the objects moving in the frame. Manual focus is also available if you like. There is also an option to change the size of the area that is focused in the frame. In terms of photography, there are plenty of features to choose from. The camera offers 11 shooting modes in total. The list includes advance modes like Manual, Aperture priority and Shutter speed priority for those who like to play around with the exposure value and experiment with the camera. Amateurs on the other hand can make do with the Auto-mode or the Programmed Auto-mode for easy use. There are also a few interesting modes such as Fish-eye mode and the Scene mode which lets you add creative filters that make your photos just that bit more interesting. A Discreet mode is also available, which disable the flash and all noise that your camera might make for situations where it is required.
The biggest feature added to the SX510 HS is Wi-Fi connectivity. It can be used to share photos and videos wirelessly with your smartphone and tablets. For that though you need to download the Canon CameraWindow app on your device. The app is available for Android and iOS devices. The 3-inch screen at the back carries a resolution of 461,000 dots which is decent, compared to other mid-range cameras. What falls short is the battery. The PowerShot SX510 HS comes with a 1060mAh lithium-ion battery that Canon claims can shoot up to 150 photos or record videos for 50 minutes in one charge. It’s far less compared to other bridge cameras, considering the fact they are meant to be carried outdoors.
Performance
The photos we clicked on Auto mode looked quite good. The camera manages to capture natural colours while maintaining good detail. Fine details are lost in bright patches of white, even under moderate light conditions. Auto white balance is spot on. The photos shot indoors under bright lights were clear and sharp, without any kind of tint. The optical image stabilisation is very impressive. We tried clicking close-up shots while only using one hand and the camera managed to reduce blur substantially. The result was the prominent while taking videos as well. The optical image stabilisation managed to normalize all most of the movement, making the resulting video look a lot smoother. In our ISO test noise levels didn’t kick in till we had it bumped up to 1600. Even then, they were only visible when we took a closer look at photos. Noise was quite noticeable with the ISO set at 3200, but the photos still looked quite good. Compared to other bridge cameras that offer a higher ISO range, the PowerShot SX510 HS performs a lot better under low-light conditions. Focusing is by far is one of the best qualities of the camera. It’s quick even when tracking objects that are constantly moving. Portrait images look good as well, all thanks to face detection sensor. It works quite well even when shooting from the side. Manual focusing is fun to play around with. We were able to focus on objects that were closer than a centimetre to the lens. This makes it one of the best cameras for macro photography. Full HD videos looked decent. It’s a lot better compared to the Canon SX500 IS. Audio recording is clear, but if you zoom in and out, the noise of the lens motor becomes more and more prominent. The noise reduction feature that comes with the camera isn’t very effective. We recorded two videos in a room with some steady noise, with the feature on and off and noticed almost no difference at all. We also tried the Super Slow Motion video recording feature. Although it works splendidly, the resolution makes it quite pointless. If you plan on using this feature, then we would recommend recording videos at 120 fps where the resolution is 640 x 480 (VGA) and is still usable to an extent. The 240 fps slow motion shooting takes the resolution down to 320 x 240, which is extremely low.
Verdict
Priced at around Rs. 15,000*, the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS might not offer all the features or the flexibility you get on other expensive bridge cameras, but in terms of picture quality, it stands right next to them. In some cases, it is even better. For example, macro photography on this camera is better compared than practically any other bridge camera we’ve reviewed. Above all, adding Wi-Fi connectivity to the compact build just makes it the ideal travel companion for its price.
