Recording Features
Playback, Editing and Print Functions
Battery Information
Inputs and Outputs Notes
Supplied Software

Recording Features

LCD Monitor: The Canon PowerShot SX230 HS has a 3" TFT PureColor LCD monitor featuring approximately 461,000 dots with approximately 100% picture coverage. The LCD display's brightness can be manually adjusted. The LCD display also features an Night Display feature that when shooting in dark conditions, the camera automatically brightens the LCD monitor to suit the brightness of the subject, making it easier to frame the subject.

Image Sensor: For optimal image quality, the camera uses a 1/2.3" CMOS image sensor with approximately 12.8-million total pixels and 12.1-million effective pixels giving your shots added depth and detail.

DIGIC 4 Image Processor: The PowerShot SX230 HS features the DIGIC 4 Image Processor. The DIGIC 4 chip has evolved Face Detection Technology that tracks the faces of moving subjects, and keeps every face in every photo looking its very best.

Face Detection Technology: The DIGIC 4 chip's Face Detection Technology finds and tracks the faces of moving subjects until you're ready to shoot, then delivers perfect focus. In addition, exposure, flash, and white balance are compensated, so that faces exhibit natural skin tones and backgrounds are properly exposed.

Face Self-Timer: The Face Self-Timer automatically detects an increase in the number of faces, and makes the appropriate adjustments. When the Face Self-Timer is set, the camera waits for the photographer's face to get on-camera before it takes the shot.

Optics: The camera features a 14x optical zoom lens and a 56x total zoom when coupled with the 4x digital zoom. You can select from the following digital zoom settings:

• Standard: enables shooting at zoom factors of up to 56x with digital and optical zooms combined at a focal length of up to 1568mm (35mm equivalent)
• Off: enables shooting without digital zoom with a focal length of 28mm to 392mm
• Digital Teleconverter: The focal length of the lens can be increased by an equivalent of 1.5x or 2.0x, enabling faster shutter speed and less chance of camera shake
  • 1.5x: digital zoom is fixed at the select zoom factor of 1.5x for a focal length of 42mm to 588mm.
  • 2.0x: digital zoom is fixed at the select zoom factor of 2.0x for a focal length of 56mm to 784mm.

Image Stabilization: The Image Stabilization function allows you to minimize the camera shake effect (blurred images) when you shoot distant subjects that have been magnified or when you shoot in dark conditions without a flash. The digital camera offers the following Image Stabilization settings:

• Continuous: You can check the effect of the IS mode on image blur on the camera's LCD monitor since the IS mode runs continually. This makes it easier to compose images and focus on subjects. When shooting movies, the camera also reduces strong camera shake, for example, when walking (Dynamic Mode).
• Shoot Only: IS mode is only activated when the shutter button is pressed, so subjects will be captured with reduced blur even if their movements on the LCD monitor are not smooth.
• Panning: This option only stabilizes the effect of up and down camera motions on the image. This option is recommended for shooting objects moving horizontally.

Recording Media: The camera records still images or movies with stereo audio on SD Memory Cards (2 GB and less), SDHC Memory Cards (2 GB to 32 GB), SDXC Memory Cards (32 GB and up), MultiMediaCards, MMCplus Cards, HC MMCplus Cards, and Eye-Fi cards. No memory card is included with the camera.

File Formats: Still images are recorded in JPEG, and the movies are recorded in MOV format (Image data: H.264, Audio data: Linear PCM (stereo)).

Still Image Resolution/Compression: You can choose from four still image sizes (Large, Medium 1, Medium 2, and Small) in each of four aspect ratios (4:3, 3:2, 16:9, or 1:1). For each image size, you can set the compression to Fine or Normal. The image resolution for each size is as follows:

Memory Card Capacity: The estimated number of 4:3 still images that can be recorded on memory cards is as follows:

Movies: High definition widescreen movies can be shot at 1920 x 1080 pixels with a frame rate of 24 frames per second or at 1280 x 720 at 30 fps. Standard definition movies can be shot at 640 x 480 or 320 x 240 with a frame rate of 30 frames per second. HD movie clip length is approximately 29 minutes and 59 seconds or 4 GB. Standard movie clip lengths are 1 hour maximum, or you can record up to the capacity of the inserted memory card. SD Speed Class 6 memory cards or higher are recommended for recording movies. The estimated length of movies that can be recorded on memory cards is as follows:

Non-standard Movie Modes: In addition to the standard movie modes above, you can shoot in the following non-standard modes:

• iFrame: iFrame movies can be played on and edited with Macintosh computers. iFrame movies are fixed at 1280 x 720, and you can store approximately 13 minutes 35 seconds of iFrame video on a 4 GB memory card or 55 minutes 38 seconds on a 16 GB card.
• Super Slow Motion: Super Slow Motion movies are recorded at a very high frame rate that play back in super slow motion. The maximum clip length is 30 seconds. Movies shot at 240 fps play back for 4 minutes, while movies shot at 120 fps play back for 2 minutes.
• Miniature Effect: You can shoot movies that look like moving miniature models. The miniature effect is created by blurring the upper and lower portions of the scene, and recording at a slow frame rate (6, 3, or 1.5 fps). When played back at 30 fps, the subjects in the movies move very quickly. There is no audio recorded in this mode.

Continuous Shooting Mode: You can use the continuous shooting mode to shoot successive frames while the shutter button is fully pressed. There are three modes:

• Continuous (approx. 3.2 images per second): For continuous shooting, the focus and exposure are locked when the shutter button is pressed halfway.
• Continuous Shooting AF (0.8 images/sec): The camera shoots continuously and focuses. The AF frame is fixed to "Center".
• Continuous Shooting LV (1 image/sec): The camera shoots continuously with the focus fixed to the position set in manual focus.

High Speed Burst: You can shoot continuously at a maximum speed of approximately 8.1 images per second in the High-speed Burst mode. Image size is fixed at 1984 x 1488. Each set of continuous images will become a single group, and the first image in the group is displayed.

Stitch Assist: Large images or panoramic views can be split into several shots that can later be merged together using the included PhotoStitch software. Up to 26 shots can be stitched together on a computer.

AutoFocus Frame Modes: The camera utilizes TTL (through-the-lens) automatic focusing with three focusing methods:

• Face Detect: The camera automatically detects the position of a face and uses the data to set the focus, exposure (evaluative metering only) and white balance (auto). When the camera is pointed at subjects, a white frame appears on the face the camera judges to be the main subject, and up to 2 gray frames will appear on other faces. When the shutter button is pressed halfway, up to 9 green frames will appear on faces on which the camera focuses.
• Center: The camera fixes the AF frame at the center; this is recommended when the target subject is at the center of the composition.
• Tracking AF: You can choose the subject you want to focus on and shoot. The camera will continue to track the subject as it moves around the frame.

AF-Point Zoom: You can magnify the AF frame and check the focus. In Face Detect mode, the face selected as the main subject will appear magnified in the monitor. In Center mode, the contents of the center AF frame will appear magnified.

Auto Focus Lock: If it becomes difficult to focus on the subject due to low contrast to the surroundings, close up and far away subjects in the same shot, or quickly moving subjects, you can choose to lock the focus or auto focus on an object at a similar distance, then shoot the picture after recomposing the shot.

Focusing Range: The camera features the following focus ranges:

• Normal: 2.0" to infinity (W), 3.3' to infinity (T)
• Macro: 2.0" to 1.6' (wide)

Smart Shutter: The Smart Shutter mode lets you shoot images without pressing the shutter:

• Smile: The camera will shoot when it detects a smile, even without pressing the shutter button.
• Wink Self-Timer: The camera will shoot approximately two seconds after it detects a wink.
• Face Self-Timer: This mode allows the photographer to enter the photo, and the camera will take the shot approximately two seconds after it detects the new face in the photo.

Shooting Modes: The Canon LCD digital camera features the following shooting modes:

• Program AE: The camera selects the aperture and shutter speed settings according to surroundings and conditions.
• Aperture Value: You can set the aperture value at which you want to shoot and the camera will set the appropriate shutter speed for the aperture value you set.
• Time Value (Shutter Priority): You can set the shutter speed at which you want to shoot and the camera will set the appropriate aperture value for the shutter speed you set.
• Manual: You can manually set both the aperture value and shutter speed. Shutter speeds from 15 seconds to 1/3200 and aperture values between f/3.1 and f/8.0 are available.
• Auto: The camera determines the subject and shooting conditions and selects the best settings for the scene.
• Easy: Operational instructions are displayed on the screen, and the camera is set so that only the buttons, the zoom lever, and the movie button are functional.
• Portrait: blurs the background and makes the subject stand out
• Landscape: for shooting majestic landscapes
• Kids & Pets: lets you capture subjects that move quickly without missing photo opportunities
• Movie Digest: You can make a short movie of a day just by taking still pictures. Each time you take a picture, the scene just before taking your shot will be recorded as a 2-4 second movie. All the movies that day will be saved as a single file.
• Special Scene Modes:
  • Handheld Night Scene: You can take shots of city night scenes by combining several continuous shots to reduce camera shake and noise. (Tripod recommended)   
  • Low Light: Depending on the scene, the ISO speed will be set higher and the shutter speed faster so you can shoot in dark places with reduced camera shake and subject blur.
  • Beach: shoots without making subjects appear dark near water or sand where reflected sunlight is strong
  • Underwater: for taking underwater scenery and aquatic life with natural colors when used with the optional WP-DC42 waterproof case.
  • Foliage: shoots trees and leaves in vivid colors
  • Snow: shoots without a blue tinge and without making subjects appear dark against a bright white background
  • Fireworks: captures fireworks in the sky sharply and at optimal exposure
• Movies: You can shoot movies in 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratios
• Creative Filters:  You can add various effects to images when shooting, such as Super Vivid, Poster Effect, Fish-eye Effect, Miniature Effect, Toy Camera Effect, and Monochrome.

Metering Modes: You can select from the following metering modes:

• Evaluative Light Metering: used for standard conditions. The area within the frame is divided into several zones and light is measured based on subject position, brightness, direct light and backlighting.
• Center-Weighted Averaging: averages the exposure from the entire image, but places more weight on the subject at the center
• Spot: meters the area within the spot AE point at the center of the LCD monitor

Exposure Compensation: If you are shooting against a bright background or strong backlight, you may need to correct the exposure so that the subject doesn't come out too dark. You can set the adjustments from -2 to +2 in 1/3-step increments.

i-Contrast: When i-Contrast is set to "Auto", the camera can automatically detect and compensate for faces and subjects that appear dark in certain shooting conditions.

AE Lock: You can set the exposure and focus separately. This is effective when the contrast is too strong between the subject and background, or when a subject is backlit.

White Balance: You can choose from the following white balance settings:

• Auto: the camera sets the white balance automatically according to shooting conditions
• Daylight: for recording outdoors on a bright day
• Cloudy: for recording under overcast, shady or twilight skies
• Tungsten: for recording under tungsten and bulb-type 3-wavelength fluorescent lighting
• Fluorescent: for recording under warm-white, cool-white or warm-white (3-wavelength) fluorescent lighting
• Fluorescent H: for recording under daylight fluorescent, or daylight fluorescent-type (3-wavelength) fluorescent lighting
• Underwater: sets the optimum white balance and tones down blues for taking pictures with natural colors underwater
• Manual: allows you to manually set the white balance and store the settings

Flash Modes: The PowerShot SX230 HS has a built-in flash that pops up when the camera is powered on, and retracts when powered off. You can select Auto (flash fires in low light), Manual (flash always fires), or Off (flash doesn't fire). The built-in flash has a range of 2.5' to 11.5' in Wide Angle and 3.3' to 6.6' in Telephoto. In the menu, you can add the following flash functions when the flash is set to On or Auto:

• Red-Eye Reduction: When activated, the red-eye reduction lamp fires when the flash is used in dark areas. This reduces the light reflecting back from the eyes, making them appear red.
• Slow-Synchro: The flash timing is adjusted to slow shutter speeds. This reduces the chance that only the background will appear dark when a person is photographed against a twilight background or night scene, or when an interior shot is taken.
• Flash Exposure Compensation: As with Exposure Compensation, you can adjust the exposure +/- 2 stops in 1/3-stop increments when using the flash.
• Safety Flash Exposure: The camera automatically changes the shutter speed or aperture value when the flash fires to avoid overexposing and blowing out the highlights of the scene.
• Flash Output Level: There are three levels of flash output: minimum, medium, maximum. This can be used when you manually set the aperture value or shutter speed (Time Value).

ISO Speed: The ISO speed can be set to 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, or Auto to reduce the effects of camera shake or avoid blurry subjects or to turn the flash off when shooting in a dark area.

My Colors: You can choose the look and feel of the photos you take by using My Colors to add the following effects to the image you are currently recording or have already recorded:

• Vivid: emphasizes the contrast and color saturation to record in bold colors
• Neutral: tones down the contrast and color saturation to record neutral hues
• Sepia: records images in sepia tones
• B/W: records images in black and white
• Positive Film: produces intense natural appearing colors like those obtained with positive film
• Lighter Skin Tone: makes skin tones lighter
• Darker Skin Tone: makes skin tones darker
• Vivid Blue: emphasizes blue tints--makes the sky, ocean, and other blue subjects more vivid
• Vivid Green: emphasizes green tints--makes mountains, foliage and other green subjects more vivid
• Vivid Red: emphasizes red tints--makes red subjects more vivid
• Custom Color: lets you adjust the contrast, sharpness, or saturation settings or the color balance between red, green, blue, and skin tones
• My Colors Off: records with no effect

GPS Information Display: The SX 230 HS is equipped with a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver to receive and record location information (Latitude, Longitude, and Elevation) in still images and movies. The GPS can also be used to automatically update the camera's clock.

Grid Lines: The camera can display gridlines, dividing the monitor into 9 areas, allowing you to check the subject's horizontal and vertical alignment.

Histogram Display: The Histogram is a graph that allows you to check the brightness of the image. The greater the bias toward the left in the graph, the darker the image. The greater the bias toward the right, the brighter the image.

Self-Timer: The self-timer starts when the shutter button is pressed. The delay time can be set to 10 seconds, 2 seconds, or Custom Timer. The Custom Timer allows you to choose the timer delay setting: 1-10, 15, 20, or 30 seconds for up to 10 shots.

Playback, Editing and Print Functions

Auto Rotate Function: The PowerShot SX230 HS Auto Rotate function uses an orientation sensor to detect whether your images were shot horizontally or vertically. During playback, the camera automatically rotates the image to the correct viewing orientation in the display. Auto Rotate can be turned on or off in the menu.

Filtered Playback: When there are many images on the memory card, you can filter and display them by a specified condition. You can also delete or protect all images at once in the filtered condition. You can select images tagged as favorites, images shot on a specified date, within a specified category, or by file type (still or movie).

Slide Show: Images stored on a memory card can automatically be displayed one-by-one using the Slide Show function. Each image displays for approximately 3 seconds. You can choose between three transition effects or without transition.

Index Display: This feature allows you to view multiple images at once on the LCD monitor so that you can search for an image quickly. As you press the zoom lever toward the left (zoom out), the number of images shown on the screen increases. You can view 6, 12, 48, or 130. Movies cannot be played in the index playback mode.

Image Magnification: When viewing a still picture in Single Image Replay mode, you can magnify the image up to 10x. You can also pan around the zoomed image to view a particular portion of the picture.

Rotating Images: You can rotate an image by 90° clockwise or counterclockwise in the LCD monitor.

Focus Check Display: Focus Check display allows you to check the focus of image taken and allows you to easily check facial expressions and whether a subject's eyes are closed. This feature can be set to allow you to check the focus of an image taken right after shooting the subject.

Red-Eye Correction: You can correct red eyes in already recorded images. However, red eyes may not be automatically detected in some images such as faces near the screen edge, faces that appear extremely small, larger dark or bright in relation to the overall image and faces turned to the side or at a diagonal and faces with a portion hidden which prevents the Red-Eye Correction from working.

Trimming: You can trim (crop) a portion of a recorded image and save it as a new image file.

Resizing Images: You can save images a lower recording pixel than the original image. You can change high resolution images to 1600 x 1200, 640 x 480 or 320 x 240.

Protecting Images: The protect feature allows you to protect important images from accidental erasure. You can protect images by the image itself, by a specific date, a category or folder, or select All Images.

PictBridge/Direct Print: Using the supplied USB cable, you can connect this camera directly to a PictBridge-compatible printer of any brand, or a Canon printer that supports the Direct Print function. You can also connect the camera directly to certain Canon Bubble Jet printers. In this way, you can make prints directly from the camera without having to hook it up to a computer.

Exif Print (Exif 2.3): The Canon PowerShot SX230 HS conforms to "Exif Print", a worldwide standard. Vital camera settings (such as: exposure mode, white balance, exposure time) and scene data are recorded to the image file when it is captured. Printers compatible with "Exif Print" are able to use this information to produce high quality photographs, exactly the way they were intended at the time of capture. This intelligent communication process also allows the printer to correct for poor lighting or mistakes, resulting in photos that can be even better than the originals.

DPOF Print Settings: On your Memory card, you can select which image or images you want to print and how many copies you want. This is convenient for printing images all at once on optional photo printers or at participating photo labs.

DPOF Transfer Order: You can use the camera to specify settings for images that you wish to download to a computer. The settings used on the camera comply with the Digital Print Order Format (DPOF) standards. A maximum of 998 images can be selected per memory card, and are transferred in order from oldest to newest by shooting date.

Battery Information

Power Requirements: The Canon PowerShot SX230 HS powered by the NB-5L Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery. The camera includes the CB-2LX battery charger. For long periods of continuous use, or when connected to a computer, it is recommended that the camera be connected to the optional ACK-DC30 AC adapter kit. The typical performance of the battery is as follows:

Power Saving Functions: The camera is equipped with the following power saving functions:

• Auto Power Down for Shooting Mode: Camera powers down after 2 or more minutes after the last control is accessed on the camera. The LCD monitor automatically turns off 1 minute after the last control is accessed even in Auto Power Down is set to off.
• Auto Power Down for Playback Mode and Connection to a Printer: The camera power down approximately 5 minutes after the last control is accessed on the camera.

Inputs and Outputs Notes

A/V Output/Digital Terminal: The PowerShot SX230 HS has a Mini-B Version 2.0 USB terminal to allow you to connect the camera to a compatible computer or compatible Canon printer via the supplied USB cable. This USB 2.0 Hi-Speed-compatible terminal allows you to rapidly download images to your computer or printer. Through the same USB jack, you can connect the camera to a TV or video monitor with stereo RCA audio and composite video input jacks using the supplied audio/video cable. You can set the video output to NTSC or PAL.

HDMI: The camera has a mini-HDMI (Type C) output. If you wish to view your photos or movies on a High Definition TV (HDTV), you can connect the camera to the TV using the supplied HTC-100 HDMI cable.

Supplied Software

Included Software: The PowerShot SX230 HS comes supplied with the Canon Digital Camera Solution Disk Ver. 88.0 JE CD-ROM. It contains the following programs:

• Canon Utilities:
  • ZoomBrowser EX 6.7.1 (Windows) / ImageBrowser 6.7.1 (Macintosh): manages images transferred to the computer; use for viewing, editing, and printing
  • CameraWindow DC 8.5: transfer images to and from the camera, organize images on the camera, upload movies on the camera to web services
  • Map Utility 1.0: uses the GPS information from images shot on the camera to view the shooting location on a map, or the route travelled while carrying the camera.
  • PhotoStitch 3.1: use to merge still images to make panoramas
• User Guides: Software Starter Guide, Personal Printing Guide

Minimum System Requirements: