For me, recommended!

For five years, I am the owner of a Canon S2 IS camera. I like the 12x zoom and was very happy except for a few points on this camera. After more than 10,000 photos with this camera, you ran last bit sluggish, and I thought it more frequently, to replace them with a newer bridge camera with a large zoom. I was in a shop, and had the Nikon P100 in hands. I zoomed in to a maximum, but noted that the camera is in business partout not want to focus. That put me off in front of this model. Then my eyes fell on the Canon SX30. The zoom worked at full zoom. In mid-December 2010, I finally bought me. The madness-Zoom inspired me. But I realized that it is better on the dial, the program P ", ie manually set when taking pictures automatically. In order not to be disappointed, you should experiment a lot with the camera. The problem is, when the light slightly is weaker, the Program AE likes deep into the ISO range. If the camera uses more than 400 ISO, we see unfortunately that the picture "is noisy. I therefore recommend that, in bright light set the ISO speed to 80 or 100.

That some critics here I can not understand totally reject the photos, if the player's setting of the camera, the photos well, although they certainly can not compare with a reflex. But that's not even sense this camera.
Positive I am surprised by the Digital Zoom, with previous cameras I have disabled it immediately, here I will retain him.

What good to me compared to the Canon S2 IS particularly like: The lens cap can not fall off, finally, there is a compact battery, the individual batteries always walked me to the nerve. For me, no argument that you can buy normal batteries commercially themselves if necessary, the S2 IS was so battery swallowing that a set of normal batteries hardly worked. As a secondary battery, I recommend a no-name "product, the original battery is just too expensive. The power-on button is also much better and easier to use. Not only the zoom is extremely enlarged, and the wide-angle begins at 24mm (equivalent in small picture format). Good for photographing z. B. buildings, castles etc.

That the manual exists only on CD, plays no major role for me, I have not even printed me, but simply viewed on the PC. However, to look at, I definitely recommend! Just playing for me the viewfinder does not matter I photograph exclusively through the Monitor, which has become much larger as compared to the S2 IS.

Conclusion: I am pure amateur photographer, I shoot to "capture" an interesting motif. The whole setting in the extreme depth details are not so important for me. I enjoy the Mega-zoom, which works well. The design-wise gives me often a distinct advantage over other cameras. So I recommend this camera.