Comments about Canon Canon SX230 HS Black Powershot 12.1 Megapixel Digital Camera:

Finally a compact camera with long zoom and manual controls. The tiny sensor camera with a 400mm equivalent lens is handy for unexpected wildlife shooting. The camera's video feature is handy for the same "memory shot" functions of wildlife.

Comments about Canon Canon SX230 HS Black Powershot 12.1 Megapixel Digital Camera:

My sd700 broke so I needed a new camera. I looked at every canon model available and usually I try to stay away from brand new product because of inflated price but this one seemed to be superior as far as options out of all the models available.
The zoom quality is amazing. I havn't yet had time to test everything out but here's what I know so far.
-HD movie quality is amazing.
-Takes a little bit to remember where all the settings/modes are and which buttons to press but once you do that navigation is fast and easy. This is a camera for a pro that uses all the features enough to navigate around the camera a lot. It does have auto and easy mode for people that don't know anything about photography though which i've noticed takes better pictures then using a specific scene mode (snow).
-Amazing compact camera for a nearly full manual camera.
-As other reviews state, the gps is very limited. It works perfect however and punching coordinates from the image into google earth comes within 1 meter. Con: The only way to see GPS coordinates of your location is to take a picture then look at the picture details.
-There also needs to be a feature to print gps coordinates onto the picture for printing as there is with date. I'm very surprised they don't have that feature, hopefully it will be a firmware update.
-GPS also drains battery a lot so it's a nice feature for just sometimes.
-The battery size was the same as my 6 year old SD700 so I was able to put use to my old batteries.
-As with other reviews the flash is annoying how it comes up every single time, but other reviews dont' tell you that you can also manually push it closed or pull open and if you turn on the camera and having your finger over it gently when powering on just keeps it shut. By habit I have my finger over it anyway when I hit power on and it never opens. I'm afraid of breaking it doing this, but it does state in the diretions/manual that it can be manually manipulated so i'm not worried about it since i rarely use flash anyway and it will not trigger in the down position.
-The camera is on the larger side of the compact cameras, but for all the features it has and 14x optical zoom, it's worth it and still pocket size.
-There is a special button for taking movies so you don't have to switch to any certain dial mode, which is nice.

Amazing camera, it should keep me up to date with the technology for another 6 years.