Which camera should I buy Canon Elph 360 or Powershot sx 620?

Steve P

One thing that has not been mentioned. When you get into high zoom ranges, the camera can become very hard to use without a tripod. 25x is not excessively high, but still enough that it could give you problems with getting a photo that is not blurred in anything other than full bright sunlight.

Frank

I think that consumer reports are good for things like washers & dryers, and other things where everyone pretty much has the same needs and expectations, and will use the product in pretty much the same way. Camera DO NOT fit this description and is why I absolutely HATE Consumer Reports recommendations for cameras. Way back in the in 1990s, I was the proud owner of a Canon T90. It was Canon's best manually focusing SLR and was used by most of the photojournalist at the time that were shooting with Canon gear. Consumer reports rated the Canon T-90, one of the best manually focusing SLRs of all time, at a measly 54th out of the lot that they had tested; basically nearly dead last. Consumer Reports rated a Pentax camera #1. Now, putting the two side by side, and there's no comparison. The Pentax was cheap and plastic, while the Canon was hefty and felt solid. Features of the T-90 blew the Pentax away. This is why I thought CR rated it so low, because maybe they thought it was too much camera for the average user (i.e. too complicated)? Either way, their review was astonishingly dead wrong. So take CR opinions on cameras with a huge grain of salt. Instead of CR, I would strongly recommend that you read reviews from dpreview.com AND www.imaging-resource.com Both do an excellent job in reviewing the cameras, but imaging-resource.com goes into the actual performance of the camera. Things like shutter lag times in milliseconds, and how many shots can one take continuously before the buffer fills up. These are just some of the real important stuff that gets left out or ignored by so many other reviewers. Here's a link to dpreview showing a side-by-side comparison of these two models: https://www.dpreview.com/products/compare/side-by-side?products=canon_elph360hs&products=canon_sx620hs After quickly reviewing this comparison, I made some observations: 1) The both have a 20MP (5184 x 3888) sensor. This means that you will be able to make photo-quality prints up to 17" x 13". Or have the ability to crop into an image while printing at a reduced size. 2) Both use a very tiny 1/2.3" sensor, which means that the crop factor is at a whopping 5.6x. This means that when you use a focal length of say 10mm, it's the equivalent of a 56mm lens on a full-frame camera. It also means that if these cameras use an aperture of say, f/4, they will produce an equivalent amount of depth of field as a full-frame camera would using an aperture of f/22. At f/22 (or f/4 with these two cameras) you're going to get a huge amount of depth of field, which just means the area that appears to be in focus. This means that you will not be able to get those blurred background effects that is so popular on social media. For some people this is a deal breaker, but if blurred out backgrounds isn't your thing, then you will benefit from the small sensor by always getting almost everything in focus. This really comes in handy when taking shots of people in groups that are 2 or more people deep (i.e. not lined up in a row). 3) Both cameras have the same ISO range of 80 ~ 3,200. Here's a link to dpreview.com showing picture quality and ISO performance of two cameras similar to the 360 and 620 - https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/image-comparison?attr18=daylight&attr13_0=canon_sx60hs&attr13_1=canon_sx530hs&attr13_2=apple_iphonex&attr13_3=apple_iphonex&attr15_0=jpeg&attr15_1=jpeg&attr15_2=jpeg&attr15_3=jpeg&attr16_0=800&attr16_1=800&attr16_2=32&attr16_3=32&normalization=full&widget=1&x=0&y=0 This shows that both cameras produce unacceptable results even at a relatively low ISO of just 800. ISO 400 is just usable providing that you don't mind editing your images on a computer to remove the noise. NEVER use the in-camera noise reduction because it just smears the entire image. Not all areas of an image show an equal amount of noise. You will need more NR in simple areas such as blue sky, but lower amounts in detailed or complicated areas like grass, bushes, and trees. You can see the effect of in-camera noise reduction by changing the image form JPEG to RAW. In JPEG mode, the image shown is with NR turned on. You can see NR really blurs the image. So if you're doing a lot of low-light work, these cameras will not be a good choice at all. The small sensor requires a lot of light, so consider these cameras to be good only on bright sunny days, or within 10' with the use of the flash. 4) You don't need the power zoom of the SX620. Most pros ca go their entire careers without ever need more than a 300mm (equivalent to full frame). So the lens in the Elph 360 will be plenty strong for nearly all point-and-shoot users. If you plan on photographing surfers or pro sports while in the stands far, far away, then the stronger lens in the Elph 620 will be useful to you. Otherwise, you're paying more for a lens that you'll never use except maybe for that one time you took photos of the Moon. 5) The SX620 has an LCD screen with more than twice the resolution of the 360. This is nice for chimping. Other than that, everything else is pretty much the same based on the comparison chart. Imaging Resource may go into more of the nitty gritty of how these cameras work out in real-world situations. Therefore, strongly recommend that you read their reviews. Both of these cameras have strong weaknesses and some strengths. Which one is best for you will depend upon your needs and expectations.

keerok

Family photos, any will do. School, the SX620 is better. You will need that additional zoom range. Besides, the Powershot lineup is supposed to be a class higher than the Elph so no brainer actually unless budget is limited.

spacemissing

Consumer Reports should Never be the only resource used in making buying decisions. While its statements are usually valid, it doesn't have the time or the financial wherewithal to test all available models. Many worthwhile products are never mentioned in its pages. Read reviews by both professional and amateur writers, particularly Actual Users of the products in question, before you seriously take one syllable of what CR says. No product is perfect, and a "slight edge" is of no real importance. What you should attend to are the Largest differences between any two possible choices.