Canon PowerShot SX200 IS

	Hardware
	Product Tour	Page 3 of 8	Design & Layout

Viewfinder

Like most compact cameras the Canon PowerShot SX200 IS lacks an optical viewfinder. This means you'll have to use the LCD display to compose all of your shots. Most of the time this won't be a problem, but LCD displays do have an unfortunate habit of washing out in direct sunlight.

LCD

The Canon PowerShot SX200 IS's sports a 3-inch LCD display, with a resolution of 230,000 dots. The size is good, but the resolution is just average as we're beginning to see a lot more 460,000 pixe displays on higher-end cameras.

The 3-inch LCD has a resolution of 230k pixels.

Flash

The flash on the Canon PowerShot SX200 IS is conveniently hidden inside the top right of the body, and pops open when you turn the camera on. This both protects the flash and ensures that you get a bit more distance between it and the lens, potentially helping to alleviate red-eye issues. One annoyance was that once the camera is on you cannot lower the flash, even when you don't want to use it. Canon rates the flash for a range of 1.6 to 9.8 feet on Auto ISO. There's also support for flash compensation, with a range of +/- 2.

The flash pops up above the lens from the top right of the SX200 IS.

Lens

The Canon PowerShot SX200 IS's signature feature is, of course, the 28-336mm lens (35mm equivalent). The lens has seen a couple of significant upgrades from its predecessor, and one unfortunate downgrade. Let's start with the positive: the focal range has gone from 10x to 12x. In doing this Canon has also chosen to add true wide-angle capabilities with a 28mm at the wide end versus the 36mm of the SX110 IS.

The SX200 IS lens is impressive when fully extended, especially compared to the size of the body.

These upgrades don't come for free, however. The SX200 IS has seen it's maximum aperture fall to f/3.4 compared to the SX110 IS's f/2.8 aperture. This is a full stop slower, and will mean you'll have to use a slower shutter speed or higher ISO in low light situations.

Jacks, Ports & Plugs

The ports on the Canon PowerShot SX200 IS are found on the right side of the camera underneath a cover towards the top. Here you'll find a mini USB port for data and a mini-HDMI port. 

The mini-HDMI port will allow you to output the SX200 IS HD video.

Battery

The Canon PowerShot SX200 IS battery is found in a compartment that opens up on the bottom of the camera. In a now familiar arrangement the battery sits right next to the slot for the memory card. Canon rates the battery for 280 shots, although if you take a lot of HD video you can expect that number to fall rapidly.

The battery and memory card slots sit right next to each other on the bottom of the camera.

Memory

The Canon PowerShot SX200 IS supports SD cards, including high capacity SDHC cards, which are available up to 32GB in size. It also supports the MMC card standard, including MMC Plus and HC MMC Plus. SD cards are cheap andy easy to find, but if you plan on taking advantage of the SX200 IS HD video recording you'll probably want to invest in some larger cards as video takes up a lot of space. Canon estimates that a 2GB card will only hold about 11 minutes of HD video.