Canon PowerShot SX50 HS review

After the success of the SX40 HS we had extremely high expectations of the SX50 HS’s image quality. It mostly performed well but it wasn’t quite the triumph we’d hoped for. Automatic exposures tended to be a little too bright, and we often had to dial in some exposure compensation to avoid clipped highlights. Meanwhile, misjudged automatic white balance sometimes gave skin tones a purple complexion. Canon has added raw support in this update, and processing shots in the bundled Digital Photo Professional software gave much better colours. We’d prefer to do this out of choice rather than necessity, though.

Automatic exposure and white balance weren’t as reliable as we’d expect from Canon, although raw support provides a fix – click to enlarge

Focus was better than we expected given the vast zoom range, but it deteriorated in the 600-1200mm range. By 1200mm, heavy chromatic aberrations put multi-coloured halos around high-contrast details that were visible even after we’d resized to fit a computer screen.

There’s nothing much wrong with focus in wide-angle shots, and details at ISO 80 are smooth and crisp – click to enlarge

Chromatic aberrations take a heavy toll at the long end of the zoom – click to enlarge

As with its predecessor, noise levels at fast ISO speeds were among the lowest we’ve seen from an ultra-zoom camera. Comparing its shots with the FZ200 at identical settings, details in its ISO 100 photos were smoother and cleaner. ISO 1600 gave print-worthy results from the Canon while the Panasonic displayed a lot of noise in shadows. However, the Panasonic’s wide-aperture lens meant it caught up and often overtook the Canon for telephoto shots in moderate light.

This is one of the best ultra-zoom cameras for indoor photography, thanks to the low noise from its sensor – click to enlarge

The SX40 HS was a superb camera, and the SX50 HS is even better with its faster shot-to-shot times, raw capture and colossal zoom. However, Panasonic has made even bigger strides with the FZ200. Both have their merits but, for us, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200‘s strengths are more compelling.