Canon PowerShot SX1 IS

Auto Mode

The Auto spot on the mode dial, not surprisingly, puts the camera into full auto mode, where the camera makes all of the decisions on how to shoot. The user still get some level of control (they can still set the ISO setting and a handful of others), but the camera does most of the heavy lifting.

Movie Mode

The movie mode is a major selling point of the SX1; the camera shoots full HD video at a resolution of 1920 by 1080 at 30 frames per second. The video files are stored in H.264 format, so they can be easily played back on most PCs and Macs. H.264 is also more widely supported than the rival AVCHD format; a wider selection of video editing programs can read the video than AVCHD. These high definition videos do take a lot of room, though; an 8GB SDHC card will only hold 24 minutes and 30 seconds of video. We weren't able to do any testing of the video mode, but the demos that Canon were showing did look promising. The SX1 has an edge over Sony's DSC-HX1 for video; the Sony shoots at a lower resolution (1280 x 720), but neither company has revealed the important numbers when it comes to the bitrate of the recorded video, which has a significant impact on the quality. 

Drive/Burst Mode

The SX1 can manage around 4 frames per second; a decent, if unspectacular speed.

Playback Mode

The SX1 has a decent set of playback controls; up to 9 images can be viewed on the screen as thumbnails and basic slideshows can be created within the camera. Images can be magnified up to 10x, and there are basic editing tools, such as cropping, resizing and Canon's proprietary i-Contrast feature, which tries to enhance images by correcting the contrast.

Custom Image Presets

Canon offers a decent selection of scene modes; 15 in total. The list includes Foliage, Snow, Beach, Sunset, Fireworks, Aquarium, Night Scene, Indoor, ISO 3200, Color Accent, Color Swap, Long Shutter. These can be accessed by putting the mode dial into the scene position, but several of the more commonly used ones have their own spots on the mode dial; you can access the portrait, landscape and sports modes quickly by turning the mode dial to the appropriate spot.