Canon PowerShot SX50 HS Camera – Zoom

~ Amusives

I got a new camera a few days ago.  It is the Canon PowerShot SX50 HS. I’ll skip right to the photos I took this morning so that you can see why I am very happy with this camera.

This was the view from my back door this morning. The neighbour’s farm buildings are near the centre of the photo (you can barely see the red barn), and the moon was in the sky above them. The sun was just coming up.

The PowerShot has a 50X optical zoom lens with Image Stabilizer. In layman terms, a zoom lens makes far away things look closer.

This is the red barn when I zoomed in on it.

This is the moon when I zoomed in on it.

The camera was set to AUTO mode, and I did not use a tripod. I think that bears repeating – I hand held the camera, and used the full AUTO mode. Point – shoot!

This camera does not come with a memory card, so we bought a SanDisk Extreme SDHC UHS-I Card. It is a ‘fast write’ card that allows the camera to record photos almost instantly. Extreme lens – extreme memory card.

The SX50 HS belongs to a group of cameras called ‘Bridge Cameras’. They are larger and more feature rich than most ‘point and shoot’ cameras, but are not as advanced as an SLR camera. Bridge Cameras have a single fixed lens that is often, as in the case of this camera, a superzoom lens.

As you can see from these photos, I am back in Canada. Brown grass, no green things in the flower beds yet. The last of the snow melted yesterday. Temperatures still below freezing most nights. The robins arrived a few days ago. The tulips have just poked out of the ground. I think it must be spring time!

Spring means yard work, and that means there are never enough hours in a day!

46 thoughts on “Canon PowerShot SX50 HS Camera – Zoom”

  1. Great shots. Spring is taking its good old time this year. It would be cool if you would show us that same shot as the seasons progress. Are those mountains or clouds in the far distance?

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    1. Yes, spring seems very late this year – but we often get a big dump of snow after the leaves are out on the trees, and we don’t have any leaves out yet!
      The white on the horizon is clouds, but behind the clouds are mountains, more so to the right of the spruce trees on the right side of the photo.

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  2. Ooooh, Margie, you lucky girl! Great photos. I have a Canon SX40 HS with a ScanDisk Extreme memory card. Love, love, love it! And I’m sure you will too. My husband gave it to me for Christmas two years ago and it replaced my Canon PowerShot SX200 IS. (I still carry the little SX200 in my purse with me wherever I go.) I know some will argue that Nikon is the way to go, but I love my Canon cameras. People are surprised that I can get the pictures I do with the point and shoot Auto mode. Have fun with it!

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    1. I’m looking forward to a few days of warm weather and sunshine so I can go outside and stalk some birds. I’ve never been able to get decent bird pictures, but I think this camera will help a lot.
      I have a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3 which I carry in my purse. It takes excellent pictures, but the viewing screen is not very good in bright sunlight. Then I have a Canon EOS 20D with a macro lens – my go to camera for bugs.
      I spent a lot of time looking at reviews for Bridge Cameras, and the SX50 HS kept getting excellent reviews, as did your SX 40 HS.

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  3. Oh, now, see? I wish you could have come along on my bike ride this weekend. This is exactly what I was talking about. I love these, especially the moon shot. One day, one very fine day, I will take a decent picture of the moon.

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    1. You did an excellent photojournal about your bike trip! I can’t get over the fact that your dandelions have already gone to seed. Ours haven’t even poked out of the ground yet!

      My daughter has taken some very nice moon shots – at night, with a camera on a tripod – time lapse stuff. She knows what all the buttons and dials on her camera do and when she explains aperture and shutter priority to me, my head hurts.

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  4. If you visited your friends in Kelowna you could sit out on the deck at night watch the ducklings (see my last blog) and smell the flowers. Snow? Oh yeah we had some of that last winter but that seems sooo long ago now… lol

    Good post I will have to look into one of those camera’s.

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    1. Hi Layton – I see you are starting a new blog.
      Yes, Kelowna seems very attractive at this time of the year – but we just got back from Arizona and there is much to do here at the Red House to get ready for spring. We opened up the cabin yesterday, and will maximize our time out there this year as it seems unlikely The Nation will renew the lease.
      We will likely make one more trip to Arizona to bring our car home, so maybe we will make it out to Kelowna on that trip!

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  6. Great photos! Glad to hear you are back safe and sound. We had to help the snow melting process this spring by shoveling it to areas where it had already melted otherwise we would still have snow. We only have a couple of weeks to get things under control before we follow the geese north.

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    1. Yes, we are back home, but will make one more trip south in order to bring the car home.
      Maybe this is the year we will make it to your cabin, though I expect most of our summer will be spent at ours – want to take advantage of the few months we have left there before we close the doors for the last time.

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    1. The camera is on sale right now at London Drugs (a Canadian Company) for just under $400. It was a gift from my husband, so I shouldn’t know the price – but I was the one who researched it!

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  9. I am so envious! I have a Canon S95 and oddly enough, I was just complaining to my husband that there isn’t enough of a zoom on my camera. If things are far away, they stay far away. 😦 I do love the Before and After shots you took to illustrate what your new camera can do. They are wonderful! 🙂

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  12. Glad to see you are happy with this camera. Canon makes great products; unless you are doing pro work, this is a perfect choice. LOVE the moon shot!

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    1. We’ve been happy with all the Canon cameras we’ve had over the years. The lenses from our film cameras fit the digital bodies and that saved a bunch of money when we made that transition.

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  14. Fantastic shots! I love that zoom. I got a Nikon in November and only just discovered the macro feature two days ago 😉

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  15. Wow! In your hands, Margie, a camera like that makes magic. It would be totally wasted on someone like me. I’m so glad you have this powerful tool to create such masterful photos. 🙂

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    1. I disagree, Lorna. This camera is fully capable of taking wonderful photos in point and shoot mode and I am confident you are as capable as the camera is!

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  16. Whoa, Nellie, I can’t believe the detail you can get from so far away. I am very happy with your new camera as well!

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  17. Nice pics! I bought the SX40 last summer and I am happy with it… still learning all the features. When I zoom way in it is not as stable as yours, but still pretty good.

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    1. The stabilization is pretty impressive, but it helps if I am very careful with how I hold the camera and how I breathe (or rather don’t breathe) when I click the shutter!

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      1. Yes I heard that before… hold your breath. I find when I have it at max zoom I can’t keep it steady very easily not matter what I do.
        Thinking about your huge manual and you actually reading it…. I have a story for you. Yesterday I went out and was taking photos and accidently discovered I have panaromic shots as an option! Don’t know HOW I turned it on and then I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off!

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        1. Panoramic shots – I’ll have to look for that! I have accidently turned on the timer the other day and then had a hard time cancelling it.

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          1. LOL!
            The panarama (well I am guessing that is what it is 😉 ) is 2 seperate icons. Each is a rectangle and one has an arrow pointing left and the other right. I really need to find that CD and read the manual now 😉
            May be just easier to google it!

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    1. Yes, I suppose the Americans breathe a sigh of relief when all the Canadian Snowbirds go home!

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  20. These are great, Margie. I’ve been wondering about getting a Bridge camera, but mostly for macros. (I’ve a travel-zoom, which is great for distance shots but hopeless for a lot of close-work. I have to ‘cheat’ and crop to get pics to look good.) Have you tried any macros with yours, yet?

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    1. Hi Val. I haven’t had a chance to work much on the macro aspect of this camera. My first impression is that I will NOT be able to get the kind of photos I get with a macro lens on my husband’s Canon EOS 20D. Time will tell.

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  22. Looks like a very good camera, and I’m sure you’ll have a lot of fun with it. Looking forward to more adventures from you.

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