Canon Powershot SX740 HS
We check out this pocketsized camera with a 40x zoom
Despite its pocketable size, the Canon PowerShot SX740 HS has a 40x zoom lens in front of its 20.3MP 1/2.3 type back-illuminated CMOS sensor.
It’s a 4.3-172.0mm f3.3-6.9 lens which in full-frame terms translates to the equivalent of 24-960mm. That’s an incredibly versatile range, giving you the opportunity to capture wide landscapes and then pick out a detail in the far distance – well at least in theory.
The sensor is paired with a Digic 8 processing engine and this enables the SX740 HS to shoot at up to 10fps in single AF mode or 7.4fps with continuous autofocusing. In addition, the SX740 HS can shoot UHD 4K video at 30/25fps. One disappointment is that stills can only be saved as JPEGs, as sadly there’s no RAW format shooting option.
On the top there’s a mode dial that lets you switch quickly between program, aperture priority, shutter priority, manual and a collection of automatic shooting options. The exposure settings are adjusted by rotating the dial on the back of the camera. Pressing the ‘up’ button toggles between aperture, shutter speed or exposure compensation depending upon the exposure mode the camera is set to. That’s a quick and easy approach.
As it has a wide zoom range, the SX740 HS would seem a good choice for travel. However, there’s no viewfinder built in, which isn’t ideal in sunny conditions. That said, the screen provides a clear view indoors and in duller conditions. There’s plenty of detail visible and the tilting bracket is helpful when shooting at low angles. If you want to shoot with the camera raised above your head, however, you have to turn it upside down to see the screen.
On the whole images taken at short to midrange focal lengths look good. Occasionally, some areas can look a bit too vivid, but in most instances the colours from the SX740 HS are good, especially in sunshine. The results at the long end of the lens, however, are a bit more variable – some are downright awful. There are several reasons for this, one is that it’s hard to get the composition you want when handholding the camera and composing the shot on the screen while using such a long focal length lens. Inevitably, these shots are also often taken through a lot of atmospheric haze and that leads to soft images. In addition, the autofocus system tends to struggle at the longer end of the lens and this means the focus is sometimes missed. Even when the subject is sharp and there’s not much haze, the images don’t look especially crisp.
If you zoom into images on a computer screen, you can see that even some wideangle shots taken at the lowest sensitivity setting lack a bit of detail. Shadows, for example, can look a bit mushy and some areas are smoother than they should be.
The AF system is reasonably fast at the wide end of the lens. You don’t get much in the way of control over the focus point, but the camera does a reasonable job of identifying a suitable point to focus on. Even if the camera doesn’t get it quite right, there’s usually enough depth of field to get away with it.
A 40x zoom is the main attraction, but a new processor also brings fast continuous shooting and 4K video