Back to Work & a New Everyday Camera

After a 3-week trip to China,1-week of caring for our sick girl and 1-week of catching up, we are finally back to working mode and sort of back to our routine.

We sure have a lot of photos to go through for our trip but Clark has to catch up with some work first before getting to those photos.  A lot to share later!

One news for us is that we finally upgraded our everyday point-and-shoot camera.  Even though we love photography, it's just impossible to carry over 3lbs of the Mark II and lens everywhere.  Especially when you are going out with 2 active children by yourself and they are dragging you to different directions, it's almost a bad idea to take your DSLR with you.  I have been using the Canon TX1 for a few years and has got some pretty nice shots and have used the video A LOT.  But it is time for an upgrade to better control of still images and particularly to true high definition video.

We were debating between the Canon PowerShot S95 and the PowerShot SX230 HS.  As a lot of reviews have shown, the S95 has super control and quality.  Most notable features are certainly the f2.0 aperture and HDR mode.  Knowing we'll use it mostly to capture our kids, it is extremely tempting to get the f2.0 aperture.  (If you don't know, f2.0 aperture provides more light and thus the shutter speed can be faster.  To capture the constantly moving kids, faster shutter speed is definitely desired.)  However, we eventually opted for the SX230 for the following reasons:
1. The primary reason: the 1080p HD video vs.  the 720p video on the S95.  Since video is one of our primary use for the point-and-shoot, just like the TX1, we want the video quality to at least match the more and more common Blu-Ray quality.  To understand the difference between 720p and 1080p, check out the below video. 


2. Wide angle and super zoom.  Its 28mm wide angle and 14x optical zoom are good enough features to make it an all-around point-and-shoot.  Of course, Canon's consistency in quality reflects well in this 12-megapixel camera.  Although we really wish it had S95's f2.0 aperture, the f3.1-f8 aperture range is acceptable for an everyday point-and-shoot.                                                                                                                                                      
3. Pretty good quality in low-light condition.  It has the 6400 ISO option.  And we tested a couple indoor shots with medium level ISO, the noise management beat our expectation.  We also tried both still and video in almost dark condition, and it still worked.  Of course, this is much better than the TX1.  If you check out other reviews, this is definitely one of the notable points everyone likes.

The one drawback we really want it to improve is the battery life, especially when GPS feature turned on.  It only lasted half day of occational shooting!  We really don't care about the GPS feature so it will remain off for sure.  After turning it off, it works more up to average expectation.

All in all, this is a well made point-and-shoot and good value in the same category of cameras.  Someone said, "the best camera is the one you have with you".  Now we have this handy and well-equiped one to be our buddy everywhere we go!
Here are a couple test shots we took with the SX230.

outdoor bright sun light with ISO-100, f4

Indoor low light with ISO-800, f5.9

Indoor with ISO-1600, f3.5