Canon PowerShot SX280 HS Pro Reviews

Not perfect, but class-leading photo and video quality plus some great extras

The Canon PowerShot SX280HS costs around £250, making it look a reasonable buy, but that's richer than similar cameras such as the Nikon Coolpix S9500. It offers a lot of zoom and feature set ideal those wanting a versatile snapper for their travels, while the inclusion of both GPS and WiFi makes for superb sharing capability. Overall image quality is very good, excellent colours and detail the key attributes required and achieved. The 14fps high speed shooting mode will also appeal, but its locked away somewhat, unavailable to the other manual modes, for example. There's neither HDR mode nor a panoramic mode, but probably the biggest problem for the SX280HS is its short battery life. It's best described as modest but when using GPS and WiFi, it is very poor. To compensate, however (and if you buy a back up battery), the excellent image quality, the quality zoom (in terms of focal length and captured detail), then the Canon PowerShot SX280HS must be high on your must have list.

The SX280 HS is a compact, well designed, sturdy, and easy to use point and shoot digital camera with a 20x zoom. Compared to its competition, the biggest difference would seem to be in the resolution arena with Canon sticking with a reasonable 12-megapixels, while Panasonic, Sony, and other OEMs seem determined to push the 20 megapixel envelope. Constantly crowding more pixels onto tiny point and shoot sensors results in noticeably higher noise levels. The SX280 HS's lower resolution sensor should record noticeably lower noise levels than its rivals and my subjective tests (comparing SX280 Images to higher resolution images from other cameras I've tested recently) prove that assumption to my satisfaction. The differences are subtle, but they are there. The SX280 HS's strongest appeal may be to travel shooters--it's small, relatively fast, inconspicuous, and capable of reliably capturing the decisive moment.

The SX280 HS principally adds built-in wi-fi connectivity, the latest DIGIC 6 image processing engine, 60fps movies, quicker GPS and better image quality at the same price-point as last year's SX260 HS model. The wireless feature feels a little half-baked, especially in comparison to Samsung's recent compacts, and we'd have liked a touchscreen interface, but overall the Canon PowerShot SX280 HS is a well-specified travel-zoom that offers the best image quality in its class. Image quality is slightly better than on the previous SX260, which was already very good, thanks to the debut of the DIGIC 6 processor. The back-illuminated sensor helps the SX280 to perform well in low light, with a usable ISO range of 100-1600 and even the higher settings proving adequate for web use and smaller prints, although we'd avoid the new top speed of ISO 6400. Full manual controls make the SX280 HS as well suited to more experienced users looking for a compact alternative to their DSLR as it is the beginner, but disappointingly there's still now raw format support.

The Canon PowerShot SX280 HS is a powerful and compact digicam, featuring some of the latest and greatest from Canon. The powerful processor allows for the fantastic shooting modes and features to operate with ease. Full manual control gives even the most advanced photographers plenty of options.

The SX260 HS was one of the best compact megazooms available in 2012 and the Canon PowerShot SX280 HS only improves on that model. Unfortunately, the SX260 HS' battery life wasn't great and that doesn't change for the SX280 HS. There are a couple of other minor issues, too, though none that I'd consider as important as the battery life.

The Canon PowerShot SX280 HS is a good, solid super-zoom camera with pretty good control, quality and features. Sticking to 12 Megapixels has allowed Canon to deliver image quality that's a little better than its rivals without missing out on fine details. The optical quality is also respectable and the image stabilization makes the entire 20x range very usable even when panning handheld at the maximum 500mm equivalent focal length. There's loads of exposure modes from a very capable Auto to full manual control, with a variety of scene presets inbetween. Meanwhile the built-in GPS tags images with your location without any fuss and the Wifi lets you easily transfer images out of the camera to computers, smartphones, printers or onto selected social media services. Viewed in isolation there's little to complain about other than the single AF area mode which can't be moved around the frame, and a misleading battery meter which often starts flashing red for movies when moments earlier it showed two or three bars for stills. Once you understand that you'll need a fully charged battery to record more than a few minutes of video though, the SX280 HS becomes a mostly enjoyable and effective camera to use. (Note Canon claims to have fixed the battery issue with a firmware update, and I'll report back after retesting the camera).

The Canon Powershot SX280 HS offers a lot of optical zoom in a compact camera body and has a number of features that the traveller will find appealing including both GPS and Wi-Fi. Image quality is very good with excellent colours and good levels of detail. The 14fps high speed shooting mode will also appeal, although it would be nice if it was available in all of the modes, and could have been used for an automatic HDR mode. It would have also been nice to see an auto-stitching panoramic mode built in. One of the biggest issues with the SX280 is the very short battery life, which will be even shorter when using GPS and Wi-Fi. However, if you are looking for excellent image quality in a compact camera, with a lot of zoom, then the Canon Powershot SX280 HS is recommended.

When it comes to compact superzooms, Canon puts together a pretty impressive list of specs with the Powershot SX280. Cameras like this show the performance and features of advanced point-and-shoots continue to evolve and there’s still a place for them amidst the rise of cell phone photography, but still come with some drawbacks. However, for a user looking for a new point-and-shoot with a super zoom lens, the SX280 makes a nice choice.

The Canon PowerShot SX280 HS puts 20x zoom in your pocket, along with Wi-Fi, GPS, and 1080p60 video capture. It's an ideal travel camera, and earns our Editors' Choice award.

The SX280 HS doesn't add much compared to its year-old SX260 sibling. We would rather have seen the addition of a touchscreen LCD and broader, more accessible autofocus options added on instead of the Wi-Fi feature which, in its current state, is just a bit of a faff to use. It will come in for occasional use though, so better to have it than not. But that's not to say this camera hasn't got he good stuff where it matters: image quality is the best in class throughout the ISO sensitivity range, while that 20x optical zoom delivers detailed images that are extra steady in preview thanks to the lens-based stabilisation. The Digic 6 processor coupled with the 12.1-megapixel sensor seems like the perfect match. But the SX280 could do with just that bit more pep. Where features are concerned the likes of the speedier Panasonic Lumix TZ40 puts this PowerShot on the back foot, even if the Lumix doesn't win when it comes to image quality. That's what it boils down to really: if image quality is your number one priority then, within this compact camera category, you needn't look further than this PowerShot which stands out above and beyond its higher-resolution competitors. We welcome Digic 6 with open arms.