Review on 📷 Canon PowerShot N: 12.1 MP CMOS Camera with 8x Optical Zoom and 28mm Wide-Angle Lens - Black Edition by Mike Castro

I bought this camera because I thought the zoom controls around the lens were similar to the SLRs I've used in the past. As it turned out, this is not so. Think of it as a larger version of their zoom and shutter button. The zoom ring only moves a very short distance, then returns to its original position as soon as you release it and continues to zoom as long as you rotate it. The ring behind activates the bolt. But you can also release the shutter by touching the viewfinder screen on the back. The camera info says it focuses on where you click when you use this option, which can be a very handy feature. Haven't tried to shoot anything sharp off center yet so can't confirm. You can turn this off, by the way, if you don't want to use it or if you keep grabbing it in such a way that the trigger fires. Although I've got it on and I've never accidentally tripped and I don't care where I put my fingers when I pick it up. Or maybe it can differentiate between grabbing and clicking on it. The controls are very different from any camera you've ever used and will take some getting used to. Even in low light, I was able to take some good photos. The flash will not fire when not needed, even in unexpectedly low light conditions. When it fires, it doesn't emit too much light like some auto flash settings on other cameras. I haven't had any overexposed, blurry shots yet. It's very small and light. I looked at the listings for this camera and its successor, the N2, and thought they both had a pop-up viewfinder, but I was wrong. This only moves in a 90-degree range. This helps with taking photos while holding the camera overhead or low, but doesn't make the viewfinder available for selfies. The N2 moves in a 180-degree arc, so it's much better for selfies. It has a mercury switch or something. So if you take an upside down picture and hold the camera upside down to do it, it knows the camera is upside down and after the shot it shows it right side up in the viewfinder, tell me, I got it but haven't tried it yet. Another difference between the N and N2 is Wi-Fi connectivity. The N2 has the ability to connect to another device by pressing a button and connecting them together. N no. I've been told it might be related, but haven't been able to do it yet. I have a Chromebook. The supplied software does not work with it. It doesn't have a CD drive and the software doesn't work with Chromebooks anyway. I figured since they said it could connect pretty much anything to it, like a phone, a Wi-Fi printer, or via the cloud, it would work with my Chromebook and my printer. However, you'll need either a PC or a Mac to set it up, otherwise you won't be able to connect it to anything else. Or maybe I just didn't understand how to do it. Of course, there's no indication of this, and the instructions say you need to set it up with a computer first. My Chromebook, printer, and router all support Wi-Fi, but none of them and the camera have touch-to-connect capability, which can make things a lot easier. I just got my Mac but haven't got everything connected and set up yet. Canon makes a computer-connected device that has touch-to-connect functionality and a large photo storage hard drive that can make it much easier to connect and store. I'm looking to upgrade to one or more touch-to-connect cameras and am considering hooking up something similar to my computer. I don't know why they left the collar connectors sticking out so much. I would prefer something less obtrusive like the N2 and most of their other cameras. It comes with a neck strap and a hand strap which you can of course attach to either arm if you wish to use it. Being right-handed, I like to flip the strap to my left so I can carry it in my left hand, ready to go, but have my right hand free for other things when I'm not shooting. .You will get a neck strap, an arm strap and a battery. The kit does not include a charger as the battery can be charged directly in the camera. Also available from Revain (separately) is a set of two batteries and a single battery charger. If you plan on using the camera a lot, consider this so you can charge two batteries (one at a time) and carry them around so you have a spare if/when the battery dies. If I had to pick one feature of this camera as the worst, I would say it's so small. It's so small that, for me at least, it's difficult to hold the camera securely and it's easier to shake when taking pictures. The anti-shake fixes this, but sometimes pressing the shutter button or tapping the back causes me to move it slightly and frame the photo a little differently than intended. Or maybe I'm just clumsy. But the size is small enough to help me be clumsy. When I bought this, N2 hadn't come out yet. I would like to wait and get N2. Overall I like it, but not as much as I thought it would.