[caption id="attachment_5115" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Canon's new super-zoom point and shoot model, the SX40 HS"]
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Typically when I do a hands on review I spend a decent amount of time talking about the physical characteristics and button placement on a camera. After all, if a camera isn't comfortable to use, you probably aren't going to use it that much, regardless of how good the image quality may be. When it comes to the new Canon SX40 HS, there really isn't much to talk about as the camera body is totally identical to last year's SX30 IS. So what is the major difference between the SX30 IS and SX40 HS? Well for starters the SX30 IS used a 14 Megapixel CCD sensor. For a long time people like myself have been crowing about how 14 Megapixels is far too high for a 1/2.3" sensor. The new SX40 HS uses a 12 Megapixel back side illuminated (BSI) CMOS sensor, which will improve low light and high ISO performance by quite a bit, hopefully. Although both cameras have the same impressive 35x optical zoom, the SX40 HS has the ability to shoot full resolution at an impressive 10 frames per second. This is a major change from the sluggish and outdated 0.6 frames per second of the SX30 IS. The only other difference I could dig up was the video quality. The SX30 IS topped out at 720p while the SX40 HS can record 1080p at 24 frames per second and 720p at 30 frames per second. There are also frame rates of 120 and 240 frames per second, but the quality of the video is pretty unusable unless you are just uploading it to youtube for fun, which is what most people are going to do. The SX40 HS also uses NB-10L battery while the SX30 IS used the NB-7L. The SX40 HS is rated for almost 400 shots per charge which is pretty decent for a point and shoot. Manufacturers will always push weird new features and useless phrases like "ULTRA/SUPER/HYPER INTELLIGENT AUTO" as they assume most people have a photography IQ of 0. However this is the kind of true update I enjoy. No matter how many gimmicks make their way into cameras, its all about the lens, sensor, and to a lesser degree the processor. Two of those three major components were upgraded in the SX40 HS, so I expect it to give better image quality than the SX30 IS. I will be doing a comparison soon so keep checking back!