Customer reviews from usa.canon.com
Canon - PowerShot SX40 HS Black 12.1-Megapixel Digital Camera - Black
Average customer rating
4.7
(125 Reviews)
Rating breakdown 125 reviews
5 Stars
97
4 Stars
19
3 Stars
8
2 Stars
1
1 Star
0
90%of customers recommend this product.
(
111 out of
123)
Customer Reviews for Canon - PowerShot SX40 HS Black 12.1-Megapixel Digital Camera - Black
Customer Rating
5
Should have waited
on September 21, 2012
Posted by: Don
from Southington, Ct
I've had the SX40 for about 3 weeks and would have been completely satisfied had I not just heard that the SX50 was just released, Should have waited.
A feature I think the SX40 should have had is a way to save a magnified photo on the camera while it's being viewed.
Pros: good battery life, Good Low-Light Performance, excellent image quality, durable, Bright LCD, Simple controls/menu, easy to use
Cons: Missing features/settings, Heavy/Bulky
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com
Customer Rating
5
Great camera
on July 6, 2012
Posted by: Tess
from Stockton, California
I bought this to replace my 10 year-old mid-range digital camera that I absolutely loved. I've fretted over what to replace it with and stumbled upon the sx40 while shopping one day. I picked it up and it felt like my old camera in my hand. It's difficult to really evaluate a camera that's tethered to a store counter, so I took a chance, bought one and brought it home. The pictures that I was able to take the very next day, even without reading the manual, were terrific. Once I actually read the manual and then changed my camera settings and used it the way it is meant to be used, then the subsequent pictures were phenomenal. I have no problems with low light, macro, problems that others have complained about in their review. I'm very happy with this camera! I even found You Tube videos that shows how to use the camera - very helpful indeed.
Pros: good battery life, Good Low-Light Performance, Nice features/settings, excellent image quality, Bright LCD, Simple controls/menu, easy to use
Cons: Heavy/Bulky
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com
Customer Rating
5
Overall satisfied
on March 25, 2012
Posted by: FL Guy
from Palm Coast, FL
Overall I am extremely satisfied with my new camera. There are a few things I wish it did better, but that does not take away from my overall happiness with the operation and picture quality of the camera. The main thing I wish it did was allow me to zoom in and focus on close shots. It works from a distance of 10 ft or more most of the time, but almost never on closer objects. I do nature photography, so getting close to the object so it will focus is not always an option. The other is the manual focus. I want to be able to focus on what I want no matter how close or far the object is. Don't force me to zoom out or in and limit my manual focus distance. I take spider photos and it doesn't always allow me to focus on a spider 4 feet away from me because I zoomed to make it fit the picture. But then again, it does pretty much everything else I want it to.
Pros: 35x zoom, 140x digital zoom, manual focus, appature priority, shutter priority, adjustable shutter speeds, stablization
Cons: won't always focus on what i want to focus on, limited manual focus, no readily available lens filters
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com
Customer Rating
5
Good for a super zoom.
on June 25, 2012
Posted by: Road Warrior
from Nevada
I recently replaced my aging Canon S5 IS with the SX40. For me, it filled 2 very specific roles: 1) Work camera (police) 2) Multi day hiking. For work, I only need to capture a representation of the scene with either photos and/ or video; so far this has worked great. My S5 spent over 4 years in a patrol bag getting beat up, tossed around, rained on, snowed on and it still works. That camera should have broke a long time ago which says a lot about Canon. For work, the ability to do macro and telephoto is great in one, relatively small package. Now this is for typical investigations, not forensic use. The second is for backpacking. I have a DSLR but lugging around the camera and lenses it a bit much for multi day trips. I would love to have it, but the extra weight wears on you; this is where I like the SX40. The camera is fairly light weight and somewhat flexible. I at least get to chronicle my adventure with good image quality. If you are a novice, there is an “auto” setting which the camera will adjust for (mostly) everything for you; however you do have to raise the flash manually. For a non-DSLR this camera had decent low light ability, especially if you use the “night scene” setting. I was very impressed with the clean shots you get with the “night scene” setting; it far exceeded my expectations for this type of camera. Check out some reviews online and some of them have sample photos using this setting.
Overall it is a nice camera, but don’t be fooled, it is NOT a DSLR nor is it a replacement for one. This camera it often referred to as a “super zoom”, being that it zooms in quite a bit more than a point and shoot camera. Typically the super zoom cameras have better image quality and more features that are easier to access. However, if you are considering either a DSLR or a super zoom, you will be happier in the long run with a DSLR…. unless you are not willing to buy several lenses. Other reviewers will state that super zooms are making DSLR’s obsolete; that is an ignorant statement. The SX40 is fairly flexible as an overall package but it is very limited compared to a DSLR. I currently shoot a 5D MkII but there are times it is just too much (bulk, weight, convenience, etc.) so a super zoom is just the ticket. BUT, when I want to shoot in low light without a flash, or want to achieve a shallow depth of field, the SX40 just won’t cut it (nor will any other super zoom). Even shooting telephoto is better. A cropped shot from my 5D and EF 100-400 is better than the “840 equivalent” from the SX40. Quite simply the interchangeable lenses, speed, sensor size (even on the “cropped sensor” DSLR’s) make the DSLR far superior.
For a lot of people who just want to capture memories and have a little fun with a camera, then the SX40 is great.
Pros: excellent image quality, durable, easy to use, flexible (for a super zoom)
Cons: no raw only jpeg
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com
Customer Rating
4
Great but not Amazing
on November 25, 2012
Posted by: Alice S.
From the minute I saw this camera, I knew this was the camera I wanted to buy. It was pretty expensive though. I bought it went it first came out and like most all cameras the price has now gone down on it. Let me just say the video part on the camera is amazing! The images are very sharp. As for the actual camera part, its good but not great. One thing that really bugs me about this camera is the focus. If you try to take a close up shot on let's say a flower, it won't focus right, and the flower becomes blurry. It makes me extremely frustrated when it does this because i love to take close up shots. The zoom is very good. I've taken many beautiful shots of the moon, and even some close ups of Mars! Over all the camera is a pretty easy going camera, just a few here and there minor things but in total I think it's a great camera.
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com
Customer Rating
3
Great camera with one fatal limitation
on February 20, 2012
Posted by: AKBear
from Alaska
My wife and I have been using this camera for a couple of months now. We really enjoy the power of the zoom lens and it has enabled us to get some great shots. But living in Alaska, one of the greatest photographic opportunities we have is the aurora. This camera would not allow us to take a decent shot. The sx40hs will only allow us to use iso 100 or lower if we want to use an exposure time of over 1 second. At iso 100, even at 15 seconds the pictures were almost completely dark. At 1 second at iso 1600 or 3200, the aurora was visible but not great. My daughter had her Rebel T1i out and took some outstanding pictures using high iso setting and longer exposures. I have used many Canon digital cameras over the years from cheaper powershots to previous versions of the sx40hs like the sx3is. I have always been able to use higher iso settings with long exposure times to get decent aurora pictures. Canon needs to fix it so you can use ISO settings up to at least 1600 for the full 15 seconds in Manual and shutter priority modes. It was a major disappointment not to be able to use a camera in this price range to take decent aurora shots.
Pros: zoom lens
Cons: can't use exposure over 1 sec at more than iso 100
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com
Customer Rating
5
Off to a good start
on February 5, 2012
Posted by: shorty
from San Francisco, CA
Just received my SX40 HS yesterday shipped in from XXX in just a few days. The Getting Started Guide was great and I am up and running in all basic areas. Everything is straight forward, and I would urge an adventurous novice user to take the plunge like I did. Product registration iseasy. The Zoom quality is truly fantastic and really intuative to use. It will add great creative depth to the photos I take.
In terms of manuals/software syncs, the package includes a CD and assums everyone still has CD ROM capabilities on their PCs, which I dropped 2 laptops back. The downloads for manuals etc are on the website, but not referenced in the packaging. Easy to find by searching the Cannon site
The full user manual is 220 pages long so I have some homework to do. That was a bit danuting; maybe they have tutorials etc to break this into chunks. One step at a time!
Overall a very good purchase and step up experience for me so far.
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com
Customer Rating
5
amazing birthday gift
on September 19, 2014
Posted by: Maya
I had this a few months, my husband gave me for my early birthday and I was very please it's very easy to use and like other costumers it has a lot of settings you can choose. I just play all of them myself and figuring out so fast. the photos are very crisp and I tooka lot of photos far without any problems or blury. I had to took photos of a moon all the way closer. I love and highly recommend this, I guess this are more better than other camera.
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com