Introduction

Ease of Use

Externally the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS looks like most other high-end ultrazoom bridge cameras, which is to say it resembles a small DSLR. But considering it packs what’s currently the biggest zoom range in the business, the camera isn’t particularly large at 127.6 x 92.6 x 114.3mm, although its 650g ready-to-shoot weight is on the chubby side. This beefiness does translate into solid build quality though, with a rugged plastic casing that’s free from flex or squeaks, to the tactile rubber coating on the finger and thumb grips.

Front of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

Considering the SX60 HS is a feature-packed camera, its control layout is fairly simple and logical. Some buttons are more unusual though, like those positioned on the lens barrel. The upper button activates Canon’s Zoom Framing Assist function. When you’re zoomed in to the max, it only takes a tiny twitch of the camera to send a distant subject flying out of frame. Finding it again can be frustrating, but by pressing and holding the Zoom Framing Assist button, the camera automatically zooms out but leaves an outline of the original frame size on screen. Position the outline around your subject, release the button and the camera automatically zooms back in. The lower button on the lens barrel then helps prevent you losing track of your subject again, as pressing it enhances the camera’s image stabilisation to further iron out camera shake. The effect is minimal though, however the Zoom Framing Assist feature is handy and effective.

Rear of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

Move to the back panel and we find a couple more non-standard controls. Beneath the video record button is a control for selecting and locking the focus point, and further down sits the camera’s Wi-Fi link button. Initial set-up can be a faff, requiring you to manually connect to the camera’s wireless hotspot, but if you’ve got an NFC-equipped mobile device, you can make the connection by simply tapping it against the camera. However you connect though, Canon’s CameraWindow mobile device app lets you wirelessly transfer images to a smartphone, tablet or computer, as well as print to a PictBridge-compatible printer. The app also allows you to remotely control the camera, which although initially impresses with minimal lag, soon loses much appeal as you can’t remotely view or set an autofocus point.

Tilting LCD Screen

Above the Wi-Fi button sits the usual directional dial pad that doubles as controls for burst shooting, flash, macro focus and display options. The latter allows you to show histograms and other information overlays in playback mode, but it also switches between the LCD and electronic viewfinder when shooting. Alternatively you can activate the EVF by flipping the movable LCD screen into its closed position.  It’s a pity the camera doesn’t have an automatic eye-detection system to switch between the two though.

Thankfully the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS's LCD and EVF themselves are both good quality and easy to use. Unfortunately the 922k-dot LCD screen isn’t touch-sensitive, but it does have great viewing angles which translate to accurate colour and contrast reproduction, regardless of your angle of view. The screen also benefits from being a fold-out unit, making it easy to compose high and low angle shots, as well as a good old selfie. Screen brightness is also high enough to be usable under direct sunlight, but if things get too bright, the electronic viewfinder is a useful alternative. Its 922k-dot resolution is crisp, but be prepared to squint at the small physical size of the EFF, which isn’t helped by a seemingly pointless black border around the image preview area.

Top of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

On top of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS sits a proper hotshoe mount, should you wish to connect a separate flashgun or remote flash triggering device. The camera’s built-in flash has to be manually opened by pulling it upward, rather than using a typical button release. Next to the flash there’s a useful customisable shortcut button which can be configured to operate one of various shooting options like white balance or exposure metering. It’s a shame this control is located directly alongside the power button though, as the two can be easily confused until you’re familiar with the camera.

You also get two dials on top of the SX60 HS. One is a control dial just like you’d find on a Canon DSLR, which makes it far easier to adjust common settings like exposure compensation than fiddling with buttons. The main mode dial sits behind this and provides instant selection of the camera’s auto, program auto, aperture and shutter priority modes, as well as a fully manual option.

Front of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

Another mode worth mentioning is Hybrid Auto, which automatically captures a couple of seconds of video with each still and compiles everything into a video digest of your day. The fun continues in Creative shot mode, where six separate images are captured with one press of the shutter release, each being automatically given a funky crop and filter according to one of five different styles. Then if you switch to the Creative Filters mode, a further eight individual filter effects can be applied as you shoot. With so many shooting options to choose from, remembering your preferred settings can be tricky, but thankfully the C1 and C2 modes allow you to save two custom setups for quick recall. The only mode that’s missing from the SX60 HS is an automatic panorama setting.

When it comes to shooting the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS, the camera will turn on and fire a shot in a spritely 1.8 seconds. Focussing in good light is almost instantaneous, but dimmer conditions slow things to a slightly sluggish 1.5 - 2 seconds. Zooming in to long focal lengths can also cause some focus hunting, and the system is sometimes unreliable in these situations, too. Exposure metering is absolutely dependable though and isn’t fazed by high-contrast scenes.

Side of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

Navigating the SX60 HS’ menu system is a doddle thanks to Canon’s tried and tested design and layout. Pressing the FUNC. SET button in the middle of the rear directional pad displays a menu overlay of commonly used shooting settings, though these do change according to which mode you’re in. There are also plenty of display preferences available during image playback, including RGB histograms.

Finally, the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS’s 340 shot battery life from its 920mAh rechargeable Li-ion battery is relatively good, narrowly beating the Nikon Coolpix P600 and Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H400. It’s not enough to pull ahead of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72’s impressive 400-shot lifespan, but by activating the SX60 HS’ Eco mode, the battery life can be eked out to around 450 shots through subtle power-saving measures.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 16 megapixel SuperFine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 5Mb.

Images taken with the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS immediately impress with vibrant yet natural colour reproduction and high levels of detail from the 16.1 megapixel CMOS sensor. A small amount of grain noise is visible at even the lowest sensor sensitivity, but this is typical of small 1/2.3” sensors.

As ISO sensitivities increase, the high-end DIGIC 6 processor does a good job of restraining image noise without sacrificing much detail. At ISO400 grain is slightly more prevalent and some colour speckling can be seen in neutral tones, but the camera’s unobtrusive noise reduction processing means images still appear natural and reasonably detailed. Even at ISO1600 image quality remains impressively high, with little more noise than at ISO400. Although the SX60 HS’ sensitivity scale tops out at an unusually low ISO3200, this setting is entirely useable thanks to low image noise levels, even if shots do look slightly soft.

The Canon PowerShot SX60 HS’s lens also performs very well, with excellent corner sharpness and minimal distortion. Chromatic aberration (purple fringing) can be spotted in high-contrast areas when viewing images at 100% size, but it’s nothing distracting. Macro performance is also impressive as the camera can focus whilst touching your subject.

However, image quality can be prone to some deterioration when shooting at extreme telephoto zoom lengths. Unless you’re in very bright conditions, the image stabilisation system alone isn’t enough to compensate for camera shake and the relatively narrow f/6.5 maximum telephoto aperture doesn’t let enough light through for fast shutter speeds. Consequently higher ISO sensitivities are required, which in turn can make images taken at long focal lengths look a bit soft.

Noise

The Canon PowerShot SX60 HS has sixteen sensitivity settings available at full resolution, ranging between ISO100 and ISO3200 in 1/3 EV steps. That’s a relatively low maximum sensitivity and many similar cameras will go higher, but the SX60 HS makes good use of the sensitivity scale it has by resolving plenty of detail with low levels of image noise.

Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting, with the JPEG version on the left and the RAW on the right.

JPEG	RAW
ISO 100 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)

Sharpening

Here are two 100% crops which have been Saved as Web - Quality 50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images are sharp enough at the default sharpening setting. You can change the in-camera sharpening level if you don't like the default look.

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

Focal Range

The Canon PowerShot SX60 HS’s 65x optical zoom lens gives you a focal range of 21-1365mm (in 35mm-camera terms). Canon’s ZoomPlus feature can double this to 130x with a minimal reduction in image quality, whilst an additional 2x conventional digital zoom will give a combined maximum 260x zoom, albeit at the expense of image quality.

21mm	1365mm

Chromatic Aberrations

The Canon PowerShot SX60 HS suffered from chromatic aberrations, with purple fringing present around the edges of objects in high-contrast situations, particularly at the edges of the frame, as shown in the examples below.

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

File Quality

The Canon PowerShot SX60 HS has two file quality options: Fine and Super Fine. File sizes average around 4-5MB and 7-8MB respectively.

SuperFine (4.68Mb) (100% Crop)	Fine (3.15Mb) (100% Crop)
RAW (13.3Mb) (100% Crop)

Macro

With a 0cm macro focussing distance, you can literally touch the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS to your subject and it’ll still focus. This is only the case at maximum wide angle; zoom in and you’ll need to start backing the camera away from your subject.

Macro	Macro (100% Crop)

Flash

The Canon PowerShot SX60 HS’s built-in flash includes four modes: Auto, On, Slow Synchro and Off. Red-eye reduction needs to be activated via the camera’s main menu. In our testing the SX60 HS successfully avoided red-eye with and without red-eye reduction, but did produce some noticeable wide-angle vignetting from a distance of 1.5m.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (21mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (21mm)
Flash Off - Telephoto (1365mm)	Flash On - Telephoto (1365mm)

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)

Handheld NightScene

Use this mode to shoot a night-time scene without the need for a tripod. The Canon PowerShot SX60 HS shoots multiple frames and combines them into a single image that minimises camera shake and image noise.

Night	Night (100% Crop)

Anti-Shake

Canon’s Intelligent IS optical image stabilisation system does a great job at ironing out the effects of camera shake and is essential when using the majority of the SX60 HS’ focal length range.

Shutter Speed / Focal Length	Anti-Shake Off (100% Crop)	Anti-Shake On (100% Crop)
1/5th sec / 24mm

Creative Filters

In addition to the Creative Shot effects, the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS also packs various conventional filters, with many also having their own customisation options. These include: HDR (Natural, Art Standard, Art Vivid, Art Bold, Art Embossed), Fish-eye Effect (three levels of distortion), Miniature Effect (selectable horizontal and vertical blur position), Toy Camera Effect (Cool, Standard, Warm), Soft Focus (three levels of blur), Monochome (Blue, B/W, Sepia), Super Vivid, and Poster Effect.

Off	HDR Natural
HDR Art Standard	HDR Art Vivid
HDR Art Bold	HDR Art Embossed
Fisheye	Miniature
Toy Camera Cool	Toy Camera Standard
Toy Camera Warm	Soft Focus
Monochrome Blue	Monochrome B&W
Monochrome Sepia	Poster Effect
Super Vivid

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS camera, which were all taken using the 16 megapixel Superfine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Canon PowerShot SX60 HS enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some Canon RAW (CR2) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movie & Video

Product Images

Front of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

Front of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS / Turned On

Side of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

Side of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

Rear of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

Rear of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

Rear of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS / Image Displayed

Rear of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS / Main Menu

Rear of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS / Tilting LCD Screen

Top of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

Bottom of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

Side of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

Side of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

Front of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

Front of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

Memory Card Slot / Battery Compartment

Conclusion

The Canon PowerShot SX60 HS is a very impressive camera that’s sure to please novice and enthusiast photographers alike. Its fusion of comprehensive control with numerous creative effects helps this, as do features like its fold-out LCD screen and good quality electronic viewfinder.

But where the camera really scores is image quality. Considering the inherent limitations of its small sensor, the SX60 HS manages to produce images with impressively low noise levels at all of its ISO sensitivity settings. Colour, dynamic range and exposure metering are superb too.

Downsides? It’s a pity there isn’t an automatic panorama mode, but given that many cameras with such a feature only turn out low resolution results anyway, you’re usually better off snapping multiple overlapping stills and using computer software to stitch them together. More annoying is a lack of automatic LCD/EVF switching, as well as the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS’s occasional reluctance to focus quickly or accurately when zoomed in.

The zoom capabilities of the SX60 HS are also not quite what the stats suggest. Sure, it’s got a class-leading 65x optical zoom lens, but thanks to a wider-than-average 21mm-equivalent wide-angle starting point, its maximum 1365mm-equivalent telephoto reach is beaten by both the Nikon P600’s 60x optic and Sony DSC-H400’s 63x lens. Even so, we’d wager you’ll prefer to take this telephoto trade-off in exchange for the extra wide-angle room when shooting group shots and cityscapes.

Ultimately the SX60 HS is still a large camera that won’t give you better image quality than a well-sorted travelzoom compact camera costing similar money. However, if you need the biggest lens in the business and prefer the ergonomic advantages of a DSLR-like design, the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS is a very good all-round buy.

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

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS.

Specifications

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