This week's review is for a camera I do not personally own, but was borrowed from a friend who graciously let me use it for my weekly project and review: A Canon Powershot SX720 HS.
Released in 2016 the SX720 has one of the longest optical zooms for a compact pocket camera, 40x; a range that typically is reserved for the much larger bridge camera ultrazooms. Obviously to get this much zoom in such a small package there are some compromises, but compared to a lot of other pocket cameras those compromises aren't too bad.
It has a 20mp 1/2.3" CMOS sensor which is pretty standard in a lot of pocket cameras of this era. It does have BSI illumination, a technology that came out around the era of the Canon Powershot S100 which makes a slight improvement in ISO noise though in many circumstances its not noticeable.
The noise is about "average" for a small sensor pocket camera, meaning you can push it to about ISO 400-800 before it starts falling apart. With built in Image Stabilization you can still get indoor photos without a flash even if it doesn't have the fastest aperture lens so long as the subject isn't moving. That said, the IS wasn't as good as the IS in the Panasonic ZS50, a competing ultrazoom pocket camera to the 720 HS that I will cover in another review.
In the hand the camera feels nice and solid. It is not lightweight and plasticky (like the Panasonic ZS50) but there were other factors for me to consider.
It has aperture/shutter priority and manual modes but it has a limited aperture range and can't shoot in RAW. It also lacks a front control ring that many premium pocket cameras in it price range include (like the ZS50).
Overall it was pretty responsive and it could parse the range of its zoom really quickly; which is a major factor for a camera with a 20-40x zoom.
This camera did a lot of things just okay and left me with a feeling of wishing it could do just a little bit more like the ZS50 does. The Image Stabilization was okay, but it could be better. The Macro mode was functional but struggled at times.The images themselves looked okay, and were a little flat with some pretty hard limits with a pretty terrible Dynamic Range to how much I could touch them up since I could not shoot in RAW.
I have plenty of other cameras that certainly do a lot better job at a lot of aspects this camera comes up short on, minus of course the zoom. So in the end this camera winds up just having a really good optical zoom but is it enough for me to want one? I don't think so.
I'll give this a 6.5 out of 10. It was certainly good enough that if I had more time with it I could learn its quirks better and get some nice shots with it. But other then having a nice build and a good zoom it felt pretty uninspired to me.
I do have several cameras in my collection that I'd pick first if I was going to go out for a shoot with a pocketable camera with a good zoom. The Panasonic ZS50 is likely the best example as while it has 10x less optical zoom (when you get past 20x that 10x doesn't make as much of a difference as you think) it makes up for that shortcoming over the Canon Powershot SX720.
I have a few friends who have this camera and love it; but it doesn't feel me. And for what this camera still sells for and is worth I can't excuse the money to buy this one or pick another one up. It just isn't me.
And now onto the edited versions of the photos I took with this camera. As with before with some touchups I can get some decent photos but you can tell some of the shortcomings mainly in the blown out regions in a few of these photos that I was unable to recover due to a limited Dynamic Range and no RAW capability.
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