Canon Cameras US PowerShot SX720 HS Black

This camera takes great pictures, the zoom is fabulous.

This is a superb camera. I grew tired of always having to lug around one of my DSLRs anytime I went out so I started looking at a few Point and Shoot options. I decided to buy the Canon Powershot 720 HS after reading some of the reviews on Amazon, and I am extremely satisfied with my purchase. The camera is compact and elegant and feels wonderful in your hand. It is a fully manual camera that allows you to set the ISO, aperture, and shutter speed, which is exactly what I was looking for in a Point and Shoot. The camera has a 40X zoom lens, but do not try to zoom out too far without mounting the camera on a tripod or stabilizing it another way. The image quality is excellent, and if you don’t tell anyone the images came from a Point and Shoot, they’d easily think they came from a mid-range DSLR with a good lens. I’ve had the camera now for a few weeks, and I’ve tested it both in the daytime and nighttime. In bright daylight, images come out crisp and richly saturated. At night, the camera performs well, especially if you use a tripod. I rarely use any of my DSLRs at night without a tripod unless I’m using a lens with a really wide aperture, so I’ve grown accustomed to mounting my cameras on tripods. You can get very sharp, high-quality images with this camera at night if you mount the camera. You’re able to do exposures lasting up to 15 seconds, and the images look great. I have not tested the video capabilities of the camera yet, but I will get to it eventually. For me, video capture is a nice option to have, but not something I am really interested in at this point. My main focus (pun intended) is taking still images. If you’re looking for a high-quality, elegant Point and Shoot, this is the camera. I am planning on traveling a lot soon, and I think I am going to leave home all of my DSLRs and lenses and just bring this camera with me. Sometimes less is more, especially with a powerful little camera like this one.

A great ultra-zoom camera. I've used it for many different events... family vacations, weddings, bicycle touring, fishing, nature photography, landscape photography, architectural photography. It does it all. And it does it really great too for such a small and lightweight camera. Picture quality is pretty good for a it's sensor size. You can probably get better better picture quality from your iPhone. But with it's 40x optical zoom, a smartphone can't compete. Sure, I could grab my Nikon P950 for it's zoom capabilities, but it's HUGE compared to this SX720. This Canon SX720 is my go to camera for most of my casual events. It's pocket sized and doesn't interfere when taking candid photos. Battery life is great. Videos are fairly stable. It's automatic functions are good and you have all of the abilities to manually set shutter speed, aperture and ISO. Even manual focus is available for combine photo stacking. What a great point and shoot camera!

Update 6/30/2017 - While the Canon SX720 has been a good camera for travel, I miss having a viewfinder and RAW format. I bought a Panasonic DMC ZS60 which has both and will try that. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Update: I've had the camera for while now and it's grown on me. The missing panoramic function is still a problem for me. Although I can stitch pictures together for a panoramic image in PhotoShop, it's extra work. I really miss that function on this camera. I found that I can overcome the slow shutter speed in "Auto" by using the T function and setting the shutter speed - but most of the time, "auto" does the job for me. The camera turns on fast and there's little shutter lag. Color is good under almost all conditions. The battery can be charged in the camera by connecting the camera to a wall wart that has a USB connector. Charges just fine. I don't use the WiFi to move pictures from the camera to my PC. I just hook up a USB cable and download them. It's easy and foolproof. Overall, I like the camera. I upgraded it one star (from 3 to 4) but the fifth star is missing because of the missing panoramic function. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I haven't had this camera too long yet but I do have some first impressions. The camera seems to be well made. It turns on quickly, the zoom works quickly and it has a long zoom. Very little shutter lag. Image quality seems to be good. The camera physical size is what I want, which is to fit into my pocket. While my iPhone takes very good pictures, I wanted a zoom lens to get in closer to my subjects. Operation is similar to other compact digital cameras so it's easy to learn. Layout of the knobs and buttons is good and intuitive. It does NOT have a touch screen like my previous camera and that's good. It's too easy to touch the screen by accident and bring up some function that you don't want. The menus are easy to get to and easy to set the various functions. A few things I don't like. The first is that there's no panoramic function. I can stitch photos together in Photoshop Elements but it would be nicer to have the panoramic function in the camera. Second, there's a number of functions to modify the look of photos. I guess some people might do that in the camera, but most would do it in their photo editing software. When I look at the "useful" functions, it's Auto and the various priority modes, plus manual. In auto mode, the camera seems to favor a slow shutter speed and a smaller aperture. Maybe that's to get more depth of field. But the problem is that if your subject is moving, you get a blurred picture. There should be a way of telling the auto function to prioritize to fast shutter speeds. I'd give up depth of field to get pictures that were not blurred by motion. [Update] I now use the T function instead of Auto and set the shutter speed to 1/125 second. Everything seems to work fine with that setting, similar to Auto, but with a faster shutter speed. The WiFi function was difficult to set up. Maybe I had trouble with the directions, but I had to call in to get help setting it up. It does do what I want it to do, which is copy the pictures on the camera to a directory on my PC. The way it names the directory is a bit different from what I do, but I can rename the directory. Another thing I don't like is that if you leave the camera connected to your PC with a USB cable, and you shut the PC off, the camera is not smart enough to shut itself off when it detects that the power is gone from the USB cable - so the camera battery is dead when you get back to it. It also seems that they expect you to remove the battery from the camera and charge it in the charger provided. That's a good approach if you use multiple batteries, but if you only use one battery, it would be much nicer to charge the battery from a plug with a USB cable. While you can do that with this camera, it's not nearly as easy as it was with my previous compact camera. It appears that you have to have the camera "on" to charge the battery. There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to charge the battery with the camera in the "off" state. So, all-in-all it's a straightforward compact digital camera with a long zoom. Too bad they didn't include a panoramic function in the camera. Overall, I'm somewhat disappointed in the camera.

Great product!! works perfectly and my daughter was so excited!! I've purchased 2 of these cameras and both work just like the brand new one I bought. we have 3.

Used the camera for a couple of weeks then got a memory card error. Most online info said to: 1) take sd card out and reinstall; 2) take battery and sd card out and reinstall; 3) reformat sd card in camera. Options 1 & 2 had no effect - camera still had memory card error; 3 isn't an option - when I go to the settings menu, format is not active (grayed out). Put in new sd card and after the first use, got the memory card error again. Only solution that worked was to reformat sd card in laptop. Have now had the camera since January. If any pressure is put on the battery/sd card compartment there is a memory card error - this means you can't mount on a tripod. Also, when trying to capture video, it will start recording but when you stop recording (press the button) there is the same error. I bought the camera to travel with but I have missed so many photo opportunities because of this thing. Would not buy again

Like others, I purchased this as a substitute for when hauling my DSLR just isn't practical. The pictures are OK, nothing better than my Samsung S9 takes. The biggest issue is WiFi connectivity. It sucks! I made several attempts at home, but figured maybe my home WiFi was getting in the way. Well outside the home area I made connection attempts again. Cumbersome, confusing, and very difficult to get the camera and my S9 to sync together. I eventually got them to connect, but I honestly don't know how I do it when it finally connects. I've spent hours researching and trying to find a solid, fast way to make the WiFi connection and I can't make it work quickly. Even the connection tutorial on the Canon Connect app falls short. The illustrations of what I should be seeing are different. To make things clear, the camera is its own WiFi connection...there is a WiFi button on the back of the camera and that sends a WiFi signal to your phone to make the connection. I am Canon loyal, but because of the poor connectivity issue I have requested a refund on this piece. Hopefully the seller grants me my request. I've had the camera slightly over a month, used it 1 day because of the connectivity issue.

My husband and I are blown away with this camera!!! One of the best purchases we've ever made!! My dslr canon rebel is going to collect dust. The rebel is great but I wanted a simple point and shoot and was trying to treat the rebel that way and of course my pictures were not great as a result. I don't want to fiddle with settings. This sx720 is exactly what I needed. Performs amazing indoors in low light. We mainly take pictures of our toddler and baby so a lot of pictures indoors and outside. I was tired of feeling like I couldn't take pictures after a certain time of day inside due to light. The bulk of our pictures we have been taking on our iPhones and storage always full. No longer!! This is the go to camera now!! We have a canon elph 130 which is awful in low light as the flash makes the person look like a ghost and the rest of the room dark. This camera doesn't do that at all! Everything looks well lit! A lot of times it doesn't even need flash when I think it will. The pop up flash is something to get used to especially when in use I have to hold the camera differently but I can live with it because of how in love I am with the picture quality this thing is producing. The video quality is also awesome! We've taken several videos of our kids playing and even out on a walk down our road and it has no issues keeping focus..just amazing. I'm so so so happy!!! We are already talking about buying another one so that we can have one set up on a tripod taking video on special occasions and the other taking pictures! This camera is going to capture so many memories for us. The camera is very well built and quality solid materials you can feel holding it. Love the buttons and that there is hardly any delay taking a picture when you press the button. The zoom is also pretty cool, I tested it out taking some pictures of deer in the field behind my house. I couldn't be happier.