Introduction

Ease of Use

One of the most exciting things about opening the box of a camera that is a follow on from a previous model is checking what the physical and technological differences/upgrades are. We opened the lid of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS and removed the paperwork which includes a Getting Started guide, warranty, promotional leaflets and CD which includes a full manual and photo editing software.

Underneath all this was the camera surrounded by the accessories included such as a lithium ion battery, charger and mains cable. There's also a USB cable and a neck strap for the camera because it's slightly larger than a typical digital compact camera. Of course, this is because of the 30x optical zoom lens stuck out the front of an otherwise slim body. The zoom isn't any larger or smaller than the previous model – the SX500 HS. In fact, the entire lens system is identical down to the same amount of lenses in the same amount of groups. That's a disappointing discovery as the lens quality on the SX500 HS wasn't that good, with chromatic aberrations and some lens distortion at wide-angle.

Front	Rear

One area that has changed is in the sensor. The Canon PowerShot SX510 HS has a 12.1 megapixel back-illuminated CMOS sensor which is a 4 million pixel drop in resolution from the 16 megapixel CCD we saw in the SX500. On top of that is the back-illuminated technology to increase low light sensitivity and the change from a CCD which records sharper images, to a more fuel efficient – but softer – CMOS. Still, in our review of the SX500 we got noise showing through at the low ISO settings, so hopefully, this change in sensor will obviate the noise problem. However, the ISO sensitivity has been raised from ISO 1600 to ISO 3200.

The Canon PowerShot SX510 HS is styled like a bridge camera and has manual control, yet Canon have placed it outside this category and instead placed it in the Superzoom section. That particular cap still fits and it's most likely that the SX510 HS isn't in the Bridge section because of the lack of raw recording. Because of the large zoom lens, the camera has an oversized grip to the right so that you can hold on firmly due to the increased weight when compared to a compact camera with a more modest zoom. The shutter release sits on top of the grip with the zoom switch circling it. The command dial that sports the afore-mentioned manual controls is situated just behind with a slight overlap of the back to access it with the thumb. It's unlikely you'll do this though because it's quite firm. We found ourselves using our fingers as well. That's not a bad thing, in fact we'd rather have a wheel that won't slip out of the mode we've selected.

Top	Side

The pop-up flash sits on top of the lens barrel, hiding until it's needed. The performance of the flash unit has been improved from a range of 1.4m – 3m at full zoom on the SX500 HS to 0.5m – 3m at full zoom on the SX510 HS. Canon have also added a Smart Flash Exposure mode to the new camera which adjusts the flash power according to the ambient light conditions.  That will be useful when using it at closer quarters.

Two other new features to the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS are GPS and wi-fi connectivity. The camera does need a smart phone to connect through and it also uses the phone's GPS system to log with it's own. So don't be under any reservations that the SX510 HS has a GPS system. It doesn't, it simply ties in the GPS details with your phone to the time and date information that it has recorded with each picture. Of course that means you have to have the date and time correct on the camera.

Front	Pop-up Flash

The Canon PowerShot SX510 HS can take up to 3.8fps (frames per second) in continuous shooting mode. That sits about right with what we managed to photograph in one second. From a cold start, the camera can start up, focus and take a picture in 1.5sec. That's pretty cool given that the standard for a camera of this type is around 2-2.5sec.

There are a couple of menus available on the SX510 HS. The easiest one to access is the Function menu. It's found on the pad on the back of the camera. Pressing the centre button brings the menu up on the left hand side of the screen. You can navigate your way through by using the up and down navigation pad. You can scroll through using the wheel around the pad as well, but this requires pressing right or Set to go into sub-menus. In the Function menu, you can access most used features, such as white-balance, resolution, compression, ISO, burst modes and metering.

Memory Card Slot	Battery Compartment

There's also a Main menu that accesses the more in-depth features of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS. There are two tabs to choose from. One allows you to make changes to operations that affect the shooting modes while the other programs the camera operations such as date & time, languages, power saving mode and screen brightening. You can also format the card or amend how it counts the photographs you take. The screen is lovely and bright with a black background, grey box and orange highlight over white lettering.

Playback is accessed by pressing the blue triangle button on the back of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS. It will work even when powered down, although you'll have to hold the button down for a few seconds if the camera is off. The pictures will display full size and by pressing the Disp button, you can add additional information to look at including a histogram. The Playback menu will allow you to perform basic editing on the pictures, such as i-Contrast, Red-eye correction and cropping. You can also resize them and add digital effects using the My Colors sub-menu. You can create a slide-show of your photographs, which is great for displaying a holiday collection. The second tab is for the DPOF system. It allows you to create print orders, select pictures to print and how many. This is available for if you connect the camera directly to a printer without using a computer first.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 12 megapixel SuperFine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 5Mb.

Noise

It's an interesting move Canon have made with the drop in resolution from 16 to 12 megapixels. The lack of pixels should make pictures less noisy as we go through the stages. The SX500 HS which this camera is replacing showed noise coming through the image even at the lowest settings. It looks like Canon have been hard at work solving that problem, because the low ISO shots are completely noise free.

In fact, it's not really until ISO 800 that we start to see a slight amount of salt and pepper noise showing through on the darker areas of the test images. Colour noise begins to show at ISO 1600 and it's not a gradual thing either; it jumps in and attacks.

At the final manual setting ISO 3200, noise is all over the image, though less noticeable in highlights, strong pockets of colour noise affect the darker areas of the shot and black & white flecks spatter the image.

ISO 80 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)

Sharpening

We found that the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS images are already very sharp, but do benefit from a little touch up in post processing.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

Focal Range

The Canon PowerShot SX510 HS has the same 30x optical zoom as its predecessor, the SX500 HS. At wide-angle, it starts at a 35mm equivalent of 24mm and goes out to 720mm at full zoom.

On a typical, everyday photograph you shouldn't pick up any irregularities, such as barrel distortion. If you compose the image with the horizon towards the top or bottom of the frame or have vertical/horizontal lines towards the edges of the frame, you might discover barrel distortion.

24mm	720mm

Chromatic Aberrations

The lens system is the same as the SX500 HS and we still discovered chromatic aberration easily in a lot of pictures. It's not only resigned to the edges of the frame either, it does creep in worryingly close to the centre of the frame.

Chromatic Aberrations 1 (100% Crop)	Chromatic Aberrations 2 (100% Crop)
Chromatic Aberrations 3 (100% Crop)	Chromatic Aberrations 4 (100% Crop)

File Quality

There are two settings of compression for the resolution. Superfine will record images around 5Mb in size. You can knock it down to Fine and images will be around 3.5Mb in size. We still recorded a lot of detail even in the Fine setting, and it will also free up space on the card.

SuperFine (4.86Mb) (100% Crop)	Fine (3.26Mb) (100% Crop)

Macro

The close focusing of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS at wide-angle is point blank range. In our test image, the memory card is pressed up against the edge of the lens. It does mean that there's little light getting in when you do that and the edge definition drops off leaving around 50% of the image in focus.

Macro	Macro (100% Crop)

Flash

The Canon PowerShot SX510 HS has a new Smart flash system which compliments the ambient light. It certainly works, by stabilising the available light. There is a lot of vignetting at wide-angle but this is eradicated by the time you get to full zoom.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (24mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (24mm)
Flash Off - Telephoto (720mm)	Flash On - Telephoto (720mm)

And here are some portrait shots. As you can see, neither the Flash On or the Red-eye-Reduction settings caused any red-eye.

Flash On	Flash On (100% Crop)
Red-eye Reduction	Red-eye Reduction (100% Crop)

Night

There's no Night mode on the SX510 HS because it has manual modes with programmable shutter speeds down to 15 seconds. There is a low light option, but this mode drops the resolution to 3 megapixels and ramps up the ISO in order to avoid camera shake. Pictures in this mode are covered in noise with little or no detail.

Night Scene	Night Scene (100% Crop)
Night Shutter-priority	Night Shutter-priority (100% Crop)

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS camera, which were all taken using the 12 megapixel SuperFine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample Movie & Video

Product Images

Front of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS

Front of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS

Pop-up Flash

Side of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS

Side of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS

Side of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS

Rear of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS

Rear of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS / Image Displayed

Rear of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS / Turned On

Rear of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS / Function Menu

Rear of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS / Shooting Mode

Rear of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS / Scene Mode

Rear of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS / Main Menu

Rear of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS / Main Menu

Rear of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS / Main Menu

Rear of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS / Wi-fi Menu

Top of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS

Bottom of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS

Side of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS

Side of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS

Front of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

The response from readers on Photography Blog about the SX500 IS was a mixed bag of people loving the variety of tech and those not liking the image quality. The latter point is a valid one and it looks as though Canon were paying attention to what consumers were saying. The result is a drop in resolution and some hard work going into the sensor, noise reduction and processor to make it much better. Image quality is now much better on the SX510 HS and the only thing that we find lets it down is the lens.

Having a massive lens on a small camera isn't a bad idea but the one that's on the SX510 HS seems to have been directly from its predecessor and that one was riddled with chromatic aberrations. Therefore, the same can be said about the new camera and it's a real shame to get such good noise control only to have purple fringing along all contrasting lines.

The dynamic range of the sensor isn't that wide, the camera struggles to expose properly in direct light or complex lighting. It often burns out highlights. We're sympathetic to the fact that the days we tested the camera were very bright with a low autumn sun that caused havoc with strong shadows. However, we've seen better results from other cameras in similar situations.

Using the camera is easy enough, though and even if you don't have any experience of manual control, there's plenty of features that will do everything for you while giving scope for improving your photographic prowess if you wish. The UI is typically straightforward so that even a newcomer to photographer will manage to navigate their way around without a lot of fuss.

For a camera at this price point, you get a good amount of features. It's easy to see a large zoom lens, manual controls and expect it to be like a DSLR and you have to dispel those thoughts while looking at the SX510 HS because it isn't one. It's a high grade point and shooter that has some manual modes. It makes it a great little camera for a family that has people who have varied levels of skill in photography.

The only thing really letting the SX510 HS down is the quality of the lens system. Design wise, we'd like to see the ugly zoom switch replaced with something a little more sleek, but that's a minor digression and we certainly won't mark the camera down for it. If you're looking for a superzoom camera that's quite small and has good noise performance, then you'll like the SX510 HS. Just take a look at the sample images and look for chroma. If you can live with it, then you'll like the Canon Powershot SX510 HS.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4
Features	4
Ease-of-use	4.5
Image quality	4
Value for money	4

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS.

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Canon PowerShot SX510 HS from around the web.

Specifications

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