Digital Home Thoughts: Canon Announces Powershot SX30IS

"Canon has announced the PowerShot SX30 IS superzoom digital compact, successor to the the SX20 IS. Compared to its predecessor, it features a 24-840mm equivalent wide-angle 35x zoom lens (as opposed to the SX20's 28-560mm equiv.), a slightly larger 2.7" articulated LCD and a 14.1Mp sensor."

Canon's new SX30 superzoom has some design cues that remind me of a EOS 1 series camera, and it's not bad looking at all. The camera now sports a 14 megapixel and a 35x zoom lens. Before anyone gets excited about the incredible "zoom" (which is usually used wrongly for narrow field-of-view) they can achieve, the 35x is achieved courtesy of the lens starting at 24mm instead of 28mm like much of the competition. This places its telephoto capabilities equal to the 30x Olympus SP800UZ. Other new additions include a new 2.7" LCD, the ability to quickly choose from one of three focal lengths (handy when you've all that range to choose from), and now uses lithium batteries. It records video at 720p at 30 FPS, and uses piezo-electric motors for both focusing and zooming. The camera will be available some time end of the month at US$429. Picture of the camera's back after the break.