Canon PowerShot SX40 HS packs a big zoom

Announced alongside the premium S100 compact, the SX40 comes packing a few party tricks. Namely, its 35x optical zoom and ultra-fast new Digic 5 processor promising improved colour, less noise and faster burst shooting. In fact, Canon tells us its new high speed burst HQ option allows the SX40 to shoot up to eight frames per second at full resolution.

A couple of other new features have made it onboard, such as intelligent image stabilisation that detects your shooting conditions to automatically determine which mode to use. The SX40 HS is also the latest model to feature the HS System, which combines a high-sensitivity back-illuminated 12.1MP CMOS sensor with Canon’s new breed of image processor to capture low noise images in all manner of conditions.

Other than a few internal tweaks and a new 12.1MP sensor, the SX40 is pretty similar to the SX30 – so it sports an f/2.7-5.8 lens that delivers the a 24-840mm range (35mm equivalent) and a 2.7in screen. It’s yours for £459 from October.

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Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home