Camera Labs

LOL The Sony is a 3MP camera that was bought in 2002 and it is retired. We just replaced it a few months ago with the Canon. It was a fine camera and I considered replacing it with the new H55 but I liked the Canon better.

The images are JPEG images that were downloaded from the camera directly to the web. I don't have time to process images so they are "as is" from the camera. Make sure your quality is set to Fine and your images are the largest JPEG size available on the camera.

P mode is a very automatic mode. I would set the ISO to 200 and leave it there and only adjust the white balance as necessary. I'll post some indoor shots later. You will see that the quality is not as good but still acceptable for a point and shoot.

@svt wylde

I will also post some newly shot pictures without zoom and in daylight.

I am really sad to know that a $249.99 camera would take images that are nearly comparable to a $150 and only 1.3mp mobile phone camera images...

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A disappointed owner of a Canon Powershot SX130 IS!

As said, if you had any experience your pictures will be much better than pictures shot with a 150$ one, and we dont talk about mobile phones here.

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Ruben

Panasonic DMC-FZ18, Panasonic DMC-FZ28, Canon G5, Canon 350D, Canon 50D + BG-E2N
Tamron 17-50 2.8, Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM,
Canon 18-55 II plus lots of Minolta MD/M42 lenses and bodies

Hi Canon Guy,

Have a look at some of these Flickr images taken with the SX130 IS. In the right hands it's a good tool and for a camera that only costs $200 (at $250, US$ I presume, you were overcharged by 25% as our price comparison page shows) one can get a good deal, in both senses, for one's money. You won't get DSLR quality out of a camera that costs less than most DSLR lenses unless you, the photographer, take care to make sure everything is working in your camera's favour.

The problem is that the market demands stupid pixel counts on tiny sensors/lenses and zoom capabilities which, especially in the case of an added "digital zoom" as I showed above, attempt and fail to defy the laws of optics. Many purchasers of such cameras, with the happy exception of the CameraLabs community of course, are too disinterested to find out about the various pros and cons. It's no accident that in the premium compact camera market, cameras often bought by DSLR owners, the pixel count has now dropped again: compare the 14.7 MP PowerShot G10 (I have one) with the current 10 MP PowerShot G12. Both the G10 and G12 have larger sensors and brighter lenses than your SX 130 IS, the trade-off being a smaller zoom range, and even the G10 has bigger pixels than the SX 130 IS. But, as I know to my cost, if I want to make best use of all those 14.7 million pixels on my G10 everything has to be just right, both in the scene I'm shooting and with my little grey cells which are controlling the camera. Just about every shot of a friend's Irish Wolfhound I've ever attempted with that camera has been awful, mainly due to failures on my part to treat the G10 as the compact it is rather than the DSLR it isn't.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

@Bob
Hi Bob!

wow the images are amazing, I am quite confused how do they do it? I think photoshop plays its role here. A software tool is a must to get such high quality results. Now I will try my best with photoshop as well for sure

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A disappointed owner of a Canon Powershot SX130 IS!

Canon Guy,

If you want the most out of your camera, then I'm afraid you will have to learn more about it than just using full auto.

There are some tips that you can use at http://dslrtips.com/. They are more for DSLR, but the basic principles still apply.

I don't think there is anything wrong with your camera itself, but you may need to learn how to use it better. I'm not talking about any post processing such as photoshop either.

To summarize some of the things mentioned earlier:
If you want better results, do not use digital zoom. It was recommended that you disable it.
Learn to use aperture and/or shutter priority modes in order to learn how to use your camera. For where you are zooming in especially, it was recommended to make sure your shutter is not slower than 1/1000th of a second.

No camera will take great pictures automatically. If you want to be able to take a great picture, that will require to learn the tool you are using, figure out it's strengths, and learn how to use it effectively. This applies to any camera you use.

If you like to read, then I would recommend the following:
Understanding Exposure, 3rd Edition: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera
I have the 2nd edition of this book and it has taught me a lot about how to take a picture.

It has ISBN numbers of:
# ISBN-10: 0817439390
# ISBN-13: 978-0817439392

It may take a little time, but once you start to understand why things work you will become better at making them work the way you want it. Again, this is true for ANY camera that you have.

In the computer field, which now applies to cameras since they are miniature computers, a great effort has been put into dwim commands. (Do What I Mean)
Full Auto mode is the closest that the camera can do for dwim; but if it is not working exactly how you want it, then you will have to get a lot more specific in telling the camera what to do. Once this is done, you will be able to effectively communicate to the camera what you want, and get the pictures that you want back.

I would recommend not learning photoshop until after you have mastered your camera. Again, I would recommend this for any camera.

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Canon Rebel XTi, BG-E3 Grip
Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II, 24-105mm f/4L, 50mm f/1.4, 70-300mm f/4-5.6 DO, 85mm f/1.8
Sigma 150mm F2.8 EX Macro
Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II
Canon 430EX II
Opteka 13mm, 21mm, and 31mm extension tubes

try shooting that bird photo with shutter priority mode with shutter faster than 1/500s, iso 200, WITHOUT digital zoom, spot metering, auto focus at center, image parameters at vivid, and see the result (in the same light situations preferably)

those settings should give you nice result if there is plenty of light

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nikon d90 --->af-s dx 18-105mm; tamron 90mm macro

add me up on:

flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakica/

deviant art:
http://tbensic.deviantart.com/

----:>bakice ce vladati svjetom<:----

Hello,

I know it's old and so on, but because it's the first result in Google search, I thought I would add additional info...

For a record:
I am Canon fan...
I am not a professional, but used plenty of different cameras (including DSLR and non Canon ones)…
I am very very very disappointed with SX130IS camera…
For it’s size, price and brand it is very poor product.

BleuDragon said: If you want the most out of your camera, then I'm afraid you will have to learn more about it than just using full auto.

Sorry, but if I am buying something new, I do not want to make 101 adjustment to get same results as from my old camera AUTO mode. Also I have tried all recommendations from forums and found no remedy for poor image quality.

I wanted to use this camera as wedding photo shoot backup (main being Sony Alpha DSLR-A580), but found that image quality is so low it’s useless… Maybe I got faulty one…

Here are comparison results for similar class cameras(with and without flash).
Conditions were the same for all cameras.
http://picturepush.com/public/8037359
http://picturepush.com/public/8037379


A700 THE BEST P&S camera I ever used – for diving, for sport events filming, amazing macros and night shots.
Note: no IS!
Note2: very old and used a lot!

A1000IS used only for test, but liked what can be done with this small baby.

SX130IS – would not recommend to anybody…
Except maybe for HD filming if focus is not your priority...

Will think a lot longer then shopping for Canon again...

Hello, sorry to resurrect older thread with a wall of text and a bunch of photos, but I was surprised at people complaining about the sx130 IS. I've used numerous compacts, and this is my favourite one. I wanted to start by saying it is not a point and shoot. It is an ultrazoom compact, with a bunch of manual settings. Yes, it has an Auto mode, but as with most cameras, especially the more money you spend on a camera, I think Auto is an afterthought, and hardly results in better pictures.

First: turn off digital zoom. Always take photos at full resolution, so that the maximum amount of image detail is available to you when editing. You can always shrink it to a smaller size to display, after editing the photo.

Second: I might get some negative feedback for saying this, and I'm no pro, but I've been assured by numerous other photographers, including those pros that I've talked with, that adjusting a photo on a computer afterwards is just a fact of life with most digital cameras - even those cameras that cost many thousands of dollars don't mean you won't need to touch things up afterwards to get it looking how you want. Even if just to crop the photo for a better laid out scene.

My settings for pretty much every photo I take on the sx130 IS:
Mode: P
Neutral Color
Evaluative spot metering
Fine quality Jpeg
handheld, with Continuous Image Stabilization on. (If on a Tripod - you MUST disable Image Stabilization, or it will make false readings and blur the image)

The only settings I ever change are these three:

Iso: usually 200 (or if there's less lighting, 400 or 800 until it clicks fast enough not to blur. If indoors, if 800 is still blurry, use Auto ISO. I never use the flash - it washes out all the interesting details and natural lighting.)
Lighting: Choose Sun or Cloudy for outdoors, or pick a light type if indoors.
For Macro: get as close as you can (1cm maximum) - or - take the photo using full optical zoom, from 1 meter or further away.

Here's some examples: The purple flowers were macro mode, the camera held only a few cm from the flower. They did not take up the entire image - I cropped them that way, from a full size image, later. The butterfly was taken at full optical zoom from more than a meter away. The butterfly only took up part of the image. Again, I cropped out the details that interested me from the larger image. Then on a computer, black levels were darkened, light levels were brightened. Using Lightroom, I slightly increased the sharpness, then decreased the resulting noise level. The result is clear, colorful, vibrant images, with a handheld compact camera.

They may not be perfect, but I would have no problem recommending this camera to other people.

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http://paulssx130.blogspot.com.au/