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A few years ago I was in the market for a new digital camera and I decided to buy a Canon PowerShot SX130 IS from Amazon. I wouldn't call myself a digital camera expert or anything, but I do photography as a hobby and I even make a little bit of money from it occasionally by selling stock photos. So I thought I'd provide a review of this camera.
I'm going to start off by mentioning some facts and stats about it.
It has a 12x optical zoom and it's a 12.1-megapixel camera. According to the user manual, you can take up to 130 photos if you're using alkaline batteries and up to 370 when using NiMH batteries. Based on my experience this is definitely true. There isn't much battery life at all when using alkaline batteries so I don't recommend even trying. But if you use NiMH batteries you shouldn't have any issues.

If you use a 4 GB memory card with this camera you'll be able to hold up to 1,231 photos and a 16 GB card will store 4,042 photos. Unfortunately, this isn't the best camera for filming though. If you want to film something you can only record videos that are about 10 minutes long. This isn't a problem if you don't do a lot of filming but if you are looking for a camera that is great for filming and photography you might want to pass on this one.

I've been using this camera for several years now. I really like it. I've had some other cameras in the past that started having problems after a few months but this one still works as well as it did the day I bought it. I have to say though, if you just want a nice camera to easily carry around for snapshots, this one might not be a good option. It's a little on the bulky side. I've seen cameras that have a much slimmer profile that pretty much work just as well. If you like to travel light and you're constantly on the go, this might not be the camera for you.

But it's a very easy camera to use and it's pretty much "fail proof". It has a dial on the top that you can use to switch to different settings depending on the situation. It has settings for portraits, people and pets, and landscapes. It even has a "smile detect" feature where it will automatically take a picture when it detects a smile. But it also has manual settings for photographers that know a little more about photography so you can get the exact photo you want.

It has a timer feature which is really easy to use. I've had cameras in the past that had the timer feature but it was really annoying and difficult to use because you had to hit a ton of buttons to set it properly. But the timer on this camera is really easy to use. You just hit the button, select how many seconds you want it to wait, then hit the shutter button and that's it.

As far as filming goes, it has a really good microphone. There have been a few times I filmed someone but accidentally had my finger over the microphone the entire time. You would think the sound would either be awful or not there at all, but the sound was still great. According to the user manual, if you hold your finger over the microphone you shouldn't be able to hear anything, but that hasn't been the case in my experience. So either I got really lucky those few times or this camera is more awesome than Canon wants to admit.

This camera also has a flash that you can pull up when you want to use it and put back down when you don't. So that is pretty convenient.

As I mentioned before, the only negative thing I can say about this camera is its size, and that's only for people that are just looking for a good camera to take quick snapshots with. If it was smaller it would be easier to travel with. I tend to use it for quick snapshots and things like stock photos and portraits. But overall it's a really great camera and it's held up for years.

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