Canon PowerShot SX600 HS review

Our image quality tests followed a similar pattern, making a strong first impression but revealing problems under scrutiny. The lens performed reasonably well throughout most of its zoom range, but telephoto shots suffered from chromatic aberrations and poor corner sharpness. Noise was reasonably understated when shooting in direct sunlight, but noise reduction softened details when insufficient light caused the ISO speed to go up.

There’s not much to fault in this brightly lit shot at a medium focal length, with sharp details and little evidence of noise. Highlights are over-exposed but the camera has done a decent job of balancing highlight and shadow detail

The hair texture in this ISO 100 shot looks a little indistinct and noisy

Details aren’t so sharp here, with blooming around the white swans and noise reduction taking its toll on the dense grass texture

This shot at the full zoom extension suffers badly from chromatic aberrations

There’s a big difference between detail levels at the centre and edge of the frame in this telephoto shot

Noise is understated in this indoor shot at ISO 640, but details are pretty vague – note the indistinct smudge of colour in the iris

Ultimately, these kinds of problems are far from unusual, especially in pocket ultra-zoom cameras where a slim lens has to cover a large focal length range. However, the bottom line is that the SX600 HS doesn’t match the standard set by last year’s Canon SX280 HS. It’s disappointing that Canon has moved from a 12- to a 16-megapixel sensor, as this has done little to boost detail levels and only really served to raise noise levels. While there’s nothing desperately wrong with the SX600 HS, we’d much rather spend the same amount on the SX280 HS.