Canon SX120 IS

	Video
	Resolution	Page 6 of 16	Sample Photos

Movie Mode (7.75)

The movie mode of the SX120 is adequate for taking a quick video of the dog or children doing something cute, but not for much more than that. Although we found the performance to be decent (see below), you can't use the optical zoom features of the camera while shooting. While you can use the zoom up to the maximum 10x before you start recording, you only get a 4x digital zoom which turns the video into a blurry mess in low light while recording. This is presumably because the zoom mechanism is rather noisy. The SX120 can also only shoot at a maximum resolution of 640 by 480, which looks positively primitive next to the high definition video that many other compact cameras are now capturing.

Video Color (9.15)

Although they are not in high definition, we did find that the videos that the SX120 captured had good color. Given the good color performance of the SX120 as a still camera, that's not surprising, but it is good to see.  Click here for more on how we test video color.

Video Color Scores Comparisons
		Compare to Kodak Z950
		Compare to Nikon L100
		Compare to Panasonic ZS3

Video Sharpness (3.21)

We were a little less impressed with the sharpness of the videos that the SX120 captured. Although they were pretty sharp for the resolution that the camera records at, they just didn't have the detail of the high definition videos that cameras like the Panasonic ZS3 can capture. However, the SX120 video is much sharper than the video of the Nikon L100, which has the same resolution. This just goes to show that resolution isn't everything.  Click here for more on how we test video sharpness.

Video Resolution Scores Comparison
		Compare to Kodak Z950
		Compare to Nikon L100
		Compare to Panasonic ZS3

See how the competition stacked up against the Canon SX120 IS
Kodak Z950	Nikon L100	Panasonic ZS3