Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

To me, Canon is a very reliable brand name for digital camera. You will have good Image Quality (IQ), descent functionality and best customer care from Canon that's why I purchased this Canon SX150 IS camera. When I unboxed camera, I felt that hey... its sort of chubby version of Point and shoot (P&S) camera. This camera is indeed VERY BULKY compare to all available camera in P&S-Pocket size category. Measuring 1.8 x 4.5 x 2.9 inches and heavy too weighting 10.7 ounces. This numbers may not catch your eyes immediately or it looks normal. But you have to look, touch and feel to realize how chubby and heavy this camera is. Also, if you try to look 'Beauty' in this camera, perhaps you won't be able to find it. I means to say design of this camera may or may not catch your eyes. I know it is totally subjective so you have to check it your self. One more thing, by touching camera you may feel some what 'plasticky' material that is cheaply made. This camera failed to catch my interest in Tactile aspect. Next step was testing it and I wanted to test it with indoor and outdoor to check IQ. Lets talk about outdoor performance first. As a typical Canon camera, its perfect for outdoor shooting. What I noticed is, decent IQ at low ISO, sharp picture without any noise (at lowest ISO), rich color, good zoom range (Perfect for travel), fast enough to catch kids and pets moments, balanced exposure and much more that should be in a perfect mid range P&S camera. One good news for this camera is about its battery life. Yes, it is indeed battery eater camera if you use 'Normal Alkaline' batteries. But if you upgrade batteries with High Capacity rechargeable NiMH batteries (2000 mAh or above), you can take 100s of snaps with almost entire day shooting and hunting with spare pair of batteries. Conclusion so far, it passed day time outdoor shooting, passed battery performance (only if you have high capacity NiMH batteries) and failed tactile aspect of camera. Now some discussion about indoor shooting. I got shocked to see performance of this camera in indoor setup. I knew that this is not 'Fast' camera, but I didn't know that it is 'Very Slow' camera. What does it mean you are unable to catch your kids' and pets' precious moments without having blur image. If you put camera on Auto mode and shoot it with High ISO, you may have blur free images but other side picture will be have full of noise. Either side you will loose. In indoor setting you only get either blurry or noisy images. No matter how cute your kids or pets are, they will always look very ordinary with 'little help of this Canon SX150 camera'. Why we take thousands of pics of out kids or pets? Because we want to 'Freeze' present precious moments for tomorrows remembrance. And I am sure you will not be pleased with IQ of this camera to make moments forever. Did I hear some one saying using flash to eliminate this problem? Well... well... wait till I unveil most unacceptable aspect of this camera. Flash performance of this camera is very worst ever I have seen. Here also you will have 'Loose-Loose situation'. How? Well, if you check IQ of pictures taken with flash on, you will get disappointment. They are not natural looking pictures. Worst part yet to come. And thats its flash to flash time interval. Just look at your kid/pet right now take a mental picture of them and just say 1, 2, 3, ...7 and then again take a mental picture. Did you miss anything that you wanted to take picture of? I bet you missed many moments worth of shooting while you were counting till 7. Why I asked you to count till 7? Well because this camera take exact 6.5 seconds to 'Charge its Flash' before you can use this camera with flash. Don't you think in today's 21st century Jet era when everything is performing very fast (in seconds or milliseconds), waiting for 6-7 seconds to charger flash of your camera seems like living in 19th century? Yes it is. In a nutshell: Pros: Good IQ outdoor shooting Acceptable battery life using NiMH batteries Big enough suits for large hands Canon interface-easy to operate even to unfamiliar persons D-pad to scroll smoothly Manual control-Aperture, shutter priority and full manual control to play with camera Fun filters to 'Play' with camera Cons: Horrible flash performance - IQ with flash worst, flash charging for 6-7 seconds worst of the worst Poor indoor IQ Slowest camera of Mid range P&S class Bulkier, heavier than every other camera Only few scenes in scene mode. Even not like kids, pets, sunset, panorama, sports, Battery life with Alkaline batteries??? If you plan to purchase this camera, don't forget to consider these accessories as well. Case Logic QPB-202 EVA Molded Flash Camcorder or Medium Zoom Camera Case (Black) (check my detail review for this case also to know it very well) Transcend 8 GB Class SDHC 10 Flash Memory Card Sanyo NEW 1500 eneloop 4 Pack AA Ni-MH Pre-Charged Rechargeable Batteries with Charger You can also consider Other camera for same price range with far more better than this. Panasonic DMC-ZS9 14.1MP Digital Camera with 16x Optical Zoom and 21x Intelligent Zoom Function (Black) Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS8 14.1 MP Digital Camera with 16x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3.0-Inch LCD Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-H70 16.1 MP Digital Still Camera with 10x Wide-Angle Optical Zoom G Lens and 3.0-inch LCD Canon PowerShot ELPH 300 HS 12.1 MP Digital Camera If you want to spend few extra bucks then you must consider, Canon PowerShot SX230HS 12.1 MP Digital Camera with HS SYSTEM and DIGIC 4 Image Processor, 14x optical zoom (Black) Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-HX7V 16.2 MP Exmor R CMOS Digital Camera with 10x Wide-Angle Optical Zoom G Lens, 3D Sweep Panorama, and Full 1080/60i HD Video And many more potential camera that you will like and love. All the best for your hunting for Best Point & Shoot camera...