Canon Shows Love for Long Zooms, HD Video at CES 2016

The Consumer Electronics Show is getting underway in Vegas and Canon is one of the first camera companies to tip their hand. Here’s a quick look at what the company introduced at the show.

Canon’s CES slate was a mostly consumer-oriented affair, with several low-cost ultra-zoom PowerShots introduced alongside a new HD video camera.

The PowerShot SX540 HS boasts a 50x optical zoom lens (equivalent to 24-1200mm) with optical image stabilization and a new 20.3-megapixel CMOS sensor. It incorporates a DIGIC 6 processor, a 3-inch display, Wi-Fi and NFC. Video recording is available at resolutions up to 1920x1080p60.

A new Story Highlights feature automatically builds a highlight reel of your images in-camera. A Hybrid Auto mode records a short video clip before each still photo and compiles them together to make a short highlight reel.

The PowerShot SX540 HS will ship in March for $400.

If you need a bit less reach, the PowerShot SX410 IS offers a 42x optical zoom lens (equivalent to 24-1008mm) with image stabilization and a 20-megapixel sensor.

The camera features Canon’s DIGIC 4+ processor, Wi-Fi and NFC plus 720p video recording and a 3-inch display. It ships in February for $300.

The VIXIA HF G40 video camera records 1080p60 in either MP4 or AVCHD formats and features a built-in 20x zoom lens.

It features:
* an HD CMOS PRO Image Sensor
* the same DIGIC DV 4 Image processor used in Canon’s XA35 and XA30 pro video cameras
* five axis image stabilization system with a dynamic mode to reduce distortion while walking
* a 3.5–inch OLED touch panel screen
* a tilting EVF , user-friendly, high resolution color Electronic View Finder (EVF).
* Zebra stripes, color bars and test tone
* focus peaking
* two SD card slots
* 1200x slow motion recording
* custom function buttons

Canon has also added new Looks settings, including Highlight Priority which delivers an HDR effect, and a Wide DR Gamma mode that boosts the dynamic range to 600 percent compared to the 300 percent on its predecessor. Both modes will help videographers reclaim details ordinarily lost to over or under-exposure.

The HF G40 will ship in February for $1,399.

The company will also add three new consumer camcorders in its Vixia RF lineup and reaffirmed its commitment to low cost, compact digital cameras, unveiling several new Digital Elphs. You can read about them here.