Subject: Teo En Ming's Extreme Disappointment with Canon PowerShot SX70HS Bridge Camera
Good day from Singapore,
After using my Panasonic FZ1000 Mark 2 bridge camera for 4 years and 4 months, it began to show signs of impending failure. It has not failed yet, but I have no idea when it will fail.
The following is a list of the problems that are showing up in my aging Panasonic FZ1000 Mark 2 bridge camera.
Camera problems:
1. Intermittent nature
2. When you power on the camera, it will auto power off and then power on by itself
3. Camera mode will change by itself
4. Camera settings like shutter speed, aperture, and ISO will change by itself
5. When you record video, video recording **MAY** stop by itself
Diagnosis by Panasonic camera repair center:
1. Motherboard issue
2. Top panel issue
3. Zoom lens issue
Panasonic camera repair technician says:
1. It will cost about $300 to repair the motherboard and top panel
2. It will cost another $570 to repair the zoom lens
Total repair costs is estimated to be about $900 to $1000.
Panasonic camera repair technician says it is not worth it to repair the camera as the repair costs is too costly. He says I might as well spend the money on buying a new bridge camera. I was told to collect back the camera on 13 Apr 2024 Saturday without any repair done and use it until it fails completely. As a gesture of good will, Panasonic camera repair center has waived off the diagnostic fee of $54.50.
I bought this Panasonic camera Brand New for $1039 on 3 Nov 2019, a few months just before the Covid-19 pandemic started. Problems only start surfacing after I have used it for 4 years 4 months.
Because I know it is a matter of time before my Panasonic FZ1000 Mark 2 bridge camera will completely fail, I have bought the Canon PowerShot SX70HS bridge camera ($756) to replace it.
And I am keeping my Panasonic FZ1000 Mark 2 bridge camera permanently in my camera museum.
Originally, I have 4 requirements for my new camera replacement.
(1) Super high optical zoom
(2) 1-inch sensor
(3) 4K video recording
(4) Fully articulated LCD screen
Canon PowerShot SX70HS has 65X optical zoom, so requirement #1 is met. It has 4K video recording. So requirement #3 is met. It has fully articulated LCD screen. So requirement #4 is met.
But it only has a 1/2.3 inch sensor. Hence requirement #2 is NOT met.
Despite knowing that Canon PowerShot SX70HS bridge camera does not have a 1-inch sensor, I still went ahead and bought it.
But I am now extremely disappointed after buying Canon PowerShot SX70HS bridge camera.
Disadvantages of Canon PowerShot SX70HS:
(1) Low light performance is extremely poor. There is a lot of noise when you shoot indoors or under low light conditions. I think the camera will only perform well when you shoot outdoors and there must be very bright light. The camera cannot be used indoors unless you have very very good lighting. Hence I hope indoor concert stages will have very powerful lighting.
(2) Overheating problem. Less than 30 mins into recording 4K video, the camera will complain that temperature is rising. After recording 4K video for slightly more than 1 hour, recording will stop because the camera overheated. The pop up on the LCD screen advises me to choose a lower recording resolution like Full HD instead of 4K. I have never had any camera overheating issues when I was recording 4K videos with Panasonic FZ1000 Mark 2 and Sony RX10 Mark 4 and even Nikon Coolpix B700. So this Canon PowerShot SX70HS comes to me as a great disappointment. How can I record 4K videos for 4-5 hours when the camera keeps overheating and shutting down by itself?
(3) The packaging box comes with 1 original Canon LP-E12 camera battery. The original Canon camera battery can last for about 1.5 hours of 4K video recording. But I didn't buy additional original Canon camera batteries to save costs. Instead I bought 3 additional pieces of 3rd party camera batteries. To my disappointment, the 3rd party camera battery will run flat after only 30 mins of 4K video recording. This is really worlds apart.
If you are interested, you can watch 3 4K videos that I have taken with Canon PowerShot SX70HS bridge camera. You can see that the resultant 4K videos are a great disappointment.
Youtube video: 1st 4K video recorded by Canon PowerShot SX70HS camera
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oJuz9-gyQE
Youtube video: 2nd 4K video recorded by Canon PowerShot SX70HS camera
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lyt4vb_S1_8
Youtube video: 3rd 4K video recorded by Canon PowerShot SX70HS camera
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR2n2cb_olM
To overcome the poor low light performance, I have bought the Kingma VL014 camera extension bracket ($10) and Kingma KM-200AI LED video light ($90) with maximum illuminance of 1350 LUX/0.5m. However, if the stage performance is very far away, I think the LED video light also won't help much.
And if I can't record 4K videos for 4-5 hours due to constant overheating, can I get the manufacturer Canon to do something for me? Since I don't have overheating problems with Panasonic FZ1000 Mark 2, Sony RX10 Mark 4 and to a lesser extent Nikon Coolpix B700, when I record 4K videos.
Thank you.
Regards,
Mr. Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming
Republic of Singapore
