_

Canon Powershot TX1: alien style, but works a treat

Flag
11:18AM May 9, 2007 | Seamus Byrne

pma-canon-tx1-1.jpgIt looks more like the Canon HV10 than a Powershot, and it is a bit of an oddity in what it can do as well. The Canon TX1 is built to house a very smart 10x optical zoom, gives 7.1Mp images AND 1280×720 HD video as well. Optical stabilisation? Damn right.

When you first pick this one up, it feels really weird and you could give up due to the awkwardness. But after a quick two minutes of play, you find the ‘right’ way to hold it and then the whole thing clicks. These are some non-federation steps we’re seeing here, but it’s worth a test drive in a store before you dismiss the strange design. This is very portable, and delivers better imaging than most compacts because it has the housing room for a really good lens. Clever, clever.

The video is nice, but you won’t be getting more than a few minutes on even a 2GB card, but then isn’t most video about catching a good few moments here and there? I know I don’t use my old DV camcorder anymore. I catch my baby boy more often on the VGA video mode of my compact digital — easier to shoot, easier to share.

Once again, more pics below!

UPDATE: Oh yeah! $699 too. None too shabby.

pma-canon-tx1-2.jpg

pma-canon-tx1-3.jpg


Comments

  • Scuba

    May 9, 2007 at 11:30 AM

    Could be what I’ve been looking for…any price indications??

  • Seamus

    May 9, 2007 at 11:31 AM

    Yep. Whoops. $699. Pretty nice. I’ve added to the post.

  • John

    May 9, 2007 at 2:21 PM

    So far I’ve been really impressed with the camera. It’s actually quite comfortable to shoot with, certainly easier than my experience trying to shoot video with compact cameras oriented more towards photos with the video functionality added as an afterthought.

    It runs just fine on 4 gig cards, though finding 8 gig cards that it’ll play nicely with is still tough. By the way, while shooting in HD does eat up memory in hurry, there’s also the option of shooting at 640 or 320, both of which take considerably less space. With a 4 gig card I can shot an hour of youtube-bound video without any trouble.

  • Matt

    May 10, 2007 at 1:37 PM

    Hmmmm blast. I’m trying to decide which new DVC to get and this was one that I was looking into to. The only trouble is it appears to be a stills camera with the added “hack-on” video functionality. Would this be a fair assumption or am I off base (happy to be shot down)? What would be nice is a sample of the high def footage to sample.

  • Seamus

    May 10, 2007 at 1:46 PM

    The way it works, Matt, it does feel more like a video camera than a still. Feels like the truest ‘hybrid’ still/photo camera that I’ve held in my hand.

    But if you are after HD video, maybe you were thinking of the Canon HV10? Looks almost the same, but it is an HDV camcorder.

  • Matt

    May 10, 2007 at 4:49 PM

    God I just found it at a GREAT price. Plus the 4Gb SD cards are sooooooooooooo cheap now maybe it’s worth it. And hey my 3 boys at 720p can only be good….right? hehehehe

  • Matt

    May 14, 2007 at 11:03 AM

    ok thought I’d finish this off with…I bought one. It’s great. I have no issue with the size (could be that my fat little hands are suited to this type of device). I have no issue thus far with the 4Gb size restriction, and I think the quality of the stills are fantastic, especially compared to my (about to be sold) Nikon S5.

  • David

    June 6, 2007 at 7:13 PM

    I have noticed that it uses heaps of space on the sd card (about 250mb per minute) and i was wondering if this is that same amount of space as it will use if i wanted upload the videos to the net? Probably a stupid question, but i just wanted to check. Cheers

  • daniel

    December 16, 2007 at 4:57 AM

    hey i have canon power shot tx1 bud it not good yuo can trust me buy a canon hv10 it has olso a digitqal camra on it! adios amigos! yaaaaar!

Post Your Comments