PHOTO QUALITY. This 20-megapixel superzoom camera captured images with very good quality. We judged this model very good for outdoor performance, such as shooting landscapes in the daytime; very good for indoor performance, such as photographing a well-lit basketball game in a gym.
FLASH. The PowerShot SX720 HS captured flash shots that were good. In our distance test, we found the camera's flash could illuminate most subjects that are closer to the camera, but had some problems with distant subjects. The flash also has very good, even coverage.
LENS. It has a very long 40x zoom lens that can be great for travel and sports shooting when you need to zoom in far to capture your subjects. The lens also has very wide-angle (24mm) capability that's very useful for landscapes and group portraits, although you may notice a bit of distortion when you're shooting faces up close, for instance.
IMAGE STABILIZATION. This is an important feature with a long zoom lens; taking hand-held shots at the telephoto end of the zoom range can generally blur or soften images due to the slight movement of your hands. Shooting zoom set at 4x in well-lit scenes, this model did a good job of minimizing the effects of camera shake. Shooting telephoto in well-lit scenes, this model did a very good job of minimizing the effects of camera shake. In low-light settings, it performed excellently and almost never produced blurry photos. Overall, the shake reduction results from our tests were very good.
SPEED. In terms of performance, the Canon PowerShot SX720 HS powers up very quickly.
VIDEO. The Canon PowerShot SX720 HS takes good video. It captures full HD video at 1920 x 1080 60p. As for sound, it captures good audio in stereo.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS. Like most point-and-shoot models, this camera does not include a viewfinder, which means you'll need to rely on the LCD to compose your photo or video. This superzoom is much smaller, thinner and lighter than most in its class.
