Fat Dragon's Super Duper Simple SX40 Manual

This is still a work in progress but please feel free to have a browse through my simplified SX40 manual based on the videos from my YouTube channel.

I will expand it more as time goes on but obviously it takes time and I want people to be able to use it as soon as possible so I thought it couldn't hurt to start posting and updating :D

Nip over to my website http://www.fatdragon100.co.uk/ and you will see the manual available in the Downloads tab :)

Comparing the SX40 to the SX50

As of late, everybody is excited because Canon have released the new model in their SX range which is the Canon SX50. Now I am not one to dash off and buy the latest model just because there is a new model out and really, if I can get past the bits about the SX40 that niggle me (especially using CHDK) then I don't see the point in spending another £400 just because the new camera is out.

However, given good reason and advanced features I may be swayed so as I am typing this new post, I am checking out the specifications of the new camera compared to my beloved SX40 to see what it really offers.

Now, I love to share what I learn in photography for the SX40 but as it comes to the end of the series when I have exhausted all topics, I will eventually have to look towards new things to chat about and as I plan to move house to a different part of the country and a different job, I will eventually have to invest in a new video camera. I am half considering using my SX40 to film if I get a new camera so we will see what my new purchase is. But anyway I digress, point being, I am in a position where a new camera would be nice in terms of technology and new tutorial series but also I need to consider what would be ideal for my own needs and I think that investing in a camera that is pretty much the SX40 would be a bad move, I may as well venture out there and see what else is on sale but nevertheless, lets look at how the two compare!

So first off, megapixels. 12.1megapixels on the SX40, 12.1megapixels on the SX50 - no changes there, I have never felt that the SX40 particularly needs more but I know that a lot of people will be itching for more! From the reviews I have read, it seems that overdoing the megapixels can just result in slower camera performance anyway so really, I wouldn't be let down by the lack of extra megapixels, as I say, there's not really anything wrong with the SX40 quality anyway so why change it right?!

Looking at the image processor, the two cameras are listed as having the same image processor as each other. Now as I have said many times before, I don't know everything technological about cameras, I am not a whiz kid and I learn most of my information from others who know more than me and from the research I do on the internet. So bear with me as I try to explain how the image processor will affect the images as we can then see how the new model will remain consistent with the SX40 seeming as they are using the same image processor.

So the image processor affects the following areas:

• Colour and brightness information - Filtering the correct colour and light to each pixel in an image and comparing them to the neighbouring pixels to ensure the correct colour value for each pixel.
• Assessing the pictures overall contrast to ensure tones are realistic. It does this by adjusting the mid-tones using the gamma value.
• Reduces noise in the image. Noise is otherwise known as grain and looks as if the picture has blocks of colour in places where there should be more variety. The image processor tries to remove areas of noise that are appearing however, it can be quite a difficult process as it may remove areas of the image that have fine detail but appear as noise to the camera.
• As the camera assesses colour and light as mentioned before, the adjustment of colour can sometimes cause an image to be too soft. The image processor will enhance image sharpness to maintain any depth and detail that can be lost when fixing the pixel colour/light and to do this it must correctly detect the edges that need sharpening and avoid making them too sharp. This is all analysed by the image processor.
• Speed of image processing. The speed at which the camera completes the above actions is determined by the image processor in the camera. Canon have named their processors DIGIC and the most ideal processors don't really show a noticeable delay between taking the picture, processing it and allowing the photographer to carry on shooting. You will notice more of a delay with longer exposures.

Now I personally don't have an issue with the speed of the SX40 however I know that there are quite a few people who were frustrated in the delay between shots when they want to take burst mode especially at a distance. It doesn't seem like this is going to change with the SX50 as they are keeping the same image processor so for a lot of us that won't make a difference but for those who want faster processing, perhaps this isn't an ideal feature in terms of 'upgrading' aspects.

Keeping with the subject of speed, the SX50 has a very slightly improved continuous mode shooting at 2.2 shots per second compared to the SX40s 2.4 shots per second so no real huge improvement there. However the High Quality burst mode which does a pretty good job on the SX40 at 10 shots per second (which actually gives you 8) has been bumped up to 13 shots per second (which actually gives you 10) so a couple of extra shots per second which isn't too shabby at all.

So now for that all important zoom!

The SX40 has a 35mm equivalent zoom of 24mm - 840mm and they have bumped this on the SX50 to a whopping 24mm - 1200mm which is absolutely crazy. I hope the image stabilisation does its job well as that is a very large zoom for handheld photography! I am curious about those new moon pictures for sure! They have also bumped up the digital zoom from 140x to 200x which means you will get that extra bit of distance on top of an already crazy zoom size.

The image stabilisation remains the same which is handy and hopefully still enough to maintain good quality with the extra zoom. I find the image stabilisation excellent on the SX40 so it's good to know that they are maintaining a good standard on the lens if it can handle the extra zoom.

One potential downside to the SX50 is the cut in Aperture where the SX40 could range as low as f2.7 - f5.8, the SX50 starts at f3.4 - f6.5 so there's a slight cut on how low the aperture can go.

However, their ISO range is increased by quite a large amount which will compensate the lack of aperture in a way. Considering that the aperture doesn't necessarily affect background blur the same way it would on an SLR, the lack of aperture isn't the end of the world. However, relying too heavily on the ISO would introduce a fair amount of grain but as a bigger picture, the cut in aperture is probably not as bad as people are thinking.

The ISO of the SX40 ranges from 100 - 3200 whereas the SX50 has a range of 80 - 6400 doubling the top ISO of the SX40. Canon claim to maintain the best quality possible when choosing their settings limits so I assume that even with an ISO of 6400 the quality shouldn't be compromised to a point where the image quality is bad and therefore, with the extra range of ISO this is definitely a handy tool to have.

In terms of focus, Canon are carrying across the Face detection, tracking and central focus features which are handy and do the job just fine.

One good change in focus settings is that the SX50 can run continuous focus in all modes whereas this feature is limited to certain modes on the SX40. They have also maintained the use of flexizone focus, which is a feature I haven't really used too much but it is handy to use when you want to focus on one particular area of the frame.

On to Shutter Speed. Now I think Canon really should have thought harder here as one of the main complaints I have heard about the SX40 is the limitation of the 15 second shutter speed as the maximum time. Now I know that the camera will only be able to deal with a certain amount of time for a shutter speed as we don't want to over heat the camera or anything like that but I'm pretty sure they could have considered a longer shutter for at least 60 seconds or so. That little bit extra would have made those night shots a little more satisfying for sure.

Not too much has changed in terms of white balance but to be fair on the SX40, it pretty much had everything covered anyway. The SX50 has an extra custom White Balance option which could come in handy when photographing at events with different lighting in different places/rooms.

Using the viewfinder seems to be staying the same which is ok although I'm not sure on other peoples thoughts but I sometimes find that the viewfinder options can be a little small. I don't know how easy it would have been for Canon to make that more user friendly but it puts me off using the viewfinder. That's just me though.

They have doubled the resolution of the SX50 LCD back screen so that  you get double the pixels for a more accurate display if your images. I like this idea but I wonder if I will really notice by just looking at it, I'd imagine it is a noticeable difference but would like to have a play with an SX50 in a store to see.

The only real difference in Flash options is that the SX50 at wide angle doesn't actually cover as far as the SX40 does. The SX40 at wide angle covers between 50cm and 7 meters (700cm) whereas the SX50 only covers 50cm - 5.5 meters (550cm). I'm not 100% sure why this is, if I find out more information I will add it into this blog post!

One smart move they have done is to remove the sports mode on the newer SX50 model. I really didn't think much of the sports mode and although I originally reviewed it to be quite good, I grew to dislike it and struggled to get many decent shots with it. It's overall removal is a good idea in my opinion, waste of a good Mode switch!

With regards to the other modes, I'm glad to see they have kept all of the standard modes such as AV, TV, Manual, Custom 1 and 2 and Auto (with enhanced scene detection). They have also added in a smooth skin mode which sounds like it could be quite nice for portraits, although they have kept in the portrait mode too so will have to check that one out in more detail if I get a chance to play with one.

They have put in a new HDR (High Dynamic Range) creative filter which would be interesting to see. I know that they are introducing RAW so I'm not sure if this will be real HDR or just simulating what HDR can look like. I would assume the latter as the amount of processing for a HDR image is probably to much to do directly on the camera. These are my assumptions though.

It was only upon looking at these comparisons that I even found out the SX40 could film with a lot of the colour effects. I've recently made a video about this and they have carried this feature over to the SX50 which is great, if only I had discovered this earlier!

One thing that I know will make a big difference for a lot of users is the introduction of RAW files which I mentioned previously. RAW allows you to keep your files uncompressed which means the file has all of the pure data that is captured in your shot without the camera compressing it into a smaller file such as JPEG. This means that you can manipulate your images a lot more and keep the quality higher whereas editing JPEGS can degrade the quality quite quickly in comparison.

Canon have also introduced the Superfine quality mode which they neglected from the SX40. This is an option Canon have used in past cameras and is pretty popular with Canon users. It uses a lot more memory as it is a larger file size but you will notice the difference in sharper edges and clearer definition of subjects however most would probably not notice this immediately when just looking at the image by eye. The difference would be more noticeable when editing or taking images of objects with more refined edges like text.

You can still customise your startup image and sounds which is a nice little extra on the SX40 but not vital of course.

They have also maintained the image tagging feature which I will mention in the near future in a video which allows the user to put the images in the memory card into categories based on the type of picture they are or if they are a favourite. This is good when you want to quickly play back through your images however my images don't tend to be on my camera long enough for that feature to be necessary.

The self timer is also unchanged but I don't really know how much more you expect the self timer to do. 10 seconds to let you get in the shot, 2 seconds if you just need to take the picture without wobbling the camera and custom if there's a specific time you want and multiple shots.

They have also kept all of the plugs the same, standard USB, AV lead and HDMI cables are all still useable with the SX50.

Software wise, the SX40 and SX50 do not differ when it comes to PC computers however on Mac computers, the SX50 will work with the newer operating system whereas the SX40 won't necessarily. I don't know a great deal about these aspects of the camera as perhaps this is just down to using the software rather than the camera being acknowledged by the computer. I will see what new information comes along and update.

The SX50 takes the same battery as the SX40 however the battery life drops a little with the SX50. Perhaps this is down to the use of the larger zoom or down to the larger image sizes or something along those lines but I don't think it's anything to panic about. It's just an average but it seems that the SX40 can take approximately 65 more shots before running out of battery and approximately 80 minutes more footage. Looking at it, it looks like SX40ers have something to smile about but really... it all depends on what functions you are using and how often etc so these averages shouldn't be taken too specifically. Just remember if you are moving from the 40 to the 50, this may be a little annoying if you are used to a little more battery power.

However a spare battery is not expensive and could solve that problem easily :P 

The SX50 does come with a piece of software to help with development of RAW images which is nice. I don't know anything about it but I'd imagine it's a good added feature if it gives you a nice bit of control over your RAW images.

You still need a filter adapter for the SX50 as you did on the SX40. This is such a silly feature, Canon should have rectified this when working on the SX40. There doesn't seem to be a logical reason for having a filter screw thread that doesn't work with filters properly but hey... I got the adapter and didn't think about it twice so I shouldn't get too stroppy :P

It seems that the SX50 is a little smaller and lighter than the SX40 but I would want to go and look at it to see if that made a real difference. I doubt it will be a huge change.

So any who, there's a not so short, and definitely not technical run through of the SX40 and the SX50. If I were to get the SX50, I think it would be because my SX40 died (god forbid!) but for now I think I am happy and if anything, if I look towards a new model, I think it will be from another brand to see what else is on offer.

Good luck with your decision making!

Using Long Exposure for Light Trails

I have just uploaded a new video about using Long Exposure to create light trails.

We have already covered this topic when we were experimenting with light writing in previous tutorials but this just shows how any moving light can create it's own light trail. All we need to do is set up the shot and stay as still as possible!

With traffic, you get a great mix of headlights and taillights and the occasional indicator which, on a moving car, will show up as a dotted line as it flashes on and off.

When we set our shot to 15" (seconds) the SX40 automatically limits the ISO to 100. As annoying as this is, it doesn't really affect us too much when we are playing with light trails as the focus of the image is the moving light which provides us with the extra illumination we need. It is also handy in a way as then the only things we need to adjust are our shutter speed and aperture according to what settings are more appropriate.

My examples are based in a well lit street and therefore I don't actually need the lowest aperture number and the longest shutter speed to achieve my light trails because there woudl be too much light in my image. However, I want to keep my shutter speed fairly long so that I get a good amount of time capturing the light trails. Therefore, my first step, when knowing that my settings are letting in too much light, is to increase my aperture from the lowest, up towards the highest f number in order to block out a little more light.

Whilst this would probably be sufficient in a lot of evening street scenes, I have a lot of lights and a lot of cars in most of my shots, so there is still too much light entering the shot. Therefore, I cut my shutter speed down to 8" (seconds) and then down again to 6" (Seconds) in order to get the right balance of light in my shot to keep the scene illuminated, but so that the car lights don't over expose the image too much.

I left the images on my other computer so I will upload them late on but I just wanted to update the blog for the moment to keep you in the loop.

Things to remember:

1 - Always use a tripod. 15 seconds is a long amount of time to keep still and likeliness is, you will move and blur your image if you aren't careful.

2 - On a similar note, set your self timer to go at 2 seconds. This gives you enough time to press the shutter and either leave the camera on the tripod, or steady your hand, whichever method you are using and let the camera take the picture.

3 - Put your Shutter down to 15" (seconds), your ISO will be limited at 100 and put your aperture as low as possible. If you zoom, your lowest aperture will be higher up the aperture scale as it can't go aas low as f2.7 if you are zooming.

4 - If you image is too bright, change your aperture to a higher number. This will maintain a long exposure for the light trails but block a little of the light out. If this isn't enough, start to shorten your exposure time by a couple of seconds until the balance of light is right.

Step Twenty Seven - Using long exposure to create light trails