Performance

For starters I can attest to the camera’s weatherproofing, after getting caught in a late March shower. As for camera timing, it’s nippy, with near-instantaneous start up. The continuous burst mode offers up to 5fps over 30 frames in largest JPEG mode. Using a SanDisk Extreme III card, I managed a one-minute burst of 224 images, with a sustained 5fps burst lasting for the first 30 seconds to capture 150 images before the buffer filled up and the camera slowed down. Of course, that’s using manual exposure and focus, so the camera has nothing else to think about. But that’s impressive nevertheless, with an average one-minute burst speed of 3.7fps.

In other areas the camera performs well too. The AF is generally spot on, though it can at times dance between focus points or choose the wrong one, in which case you need to switch to manual selection. Canon also knows a thing or two about menu design: I like its scrolling action and fast jump to different sections, though I still find the typeface quite small compared to other systems.