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The Canon PowerShot SX130is measures 300grams and 11x7x4.5cm however the last figure the width can be doubled when the lens is fully zoomed out.

12 seems the number with this unit as it has an impressive 12x optical zoom and the pixel offering is 12.1MP.

The right side has the anchor point for the wrist strap and above this a rubberised door hiding the A/V and USB out. The base has the door for the two ‘AA’ batteries and any SD card you might use as well as the tripod screw.

The left side also has another small rubberised door behind which is a small watch type battery that keeps time and date, should you remove this while the camera is off you need to reset time and date. A new feature to me.

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The face has the 5 to 60mm zoom lens mounted towards the left side leaving space for the fingers of the right hand to grip the camera. Immediately above the lens on top of the unit is the flash that you have to flip up manually. To the right of this the eleven position wheel that has all the shooting modes. Towards the back the semi circular on/off button and in front of this the circular shoot button with the telephoto wide angle button around this both of these buttons are chromed for ease of thumb use.

This leaves the back of the camera. It is dominated by the 6x4.5cm TFF display 93 inch diagonal measurement) to the right of this five well labelled buttons and of course the ubiquitous five position joystick control.

Image sizes possible are L 12MP 4000x3000, M1 6MP 2816x2112, M2 2MP 1600x1200, S VGA 640x480 and W 12MP 4000x 2248. All five resolutions are available to capture in either fine or normal mode. Using the M1 mode for sizing examples in fine mode an image is something like 1.2MB while in standard mode around 500KB.

In video mode there are three capture sizes 1280, 640 and 320. As an example a minute video in 640 mode will take around 85MB of space.

The one thing I could not really test at this time of year is bright sunlight on the TFT display. In poor light it is a bit of a chore to remember to flip up the flash, so even if you tell it to use flash you still have to raise it manually.

I was happy with the flash images up to around 3metres after that the image did tend to fade into the background. I am not a huge fan of ‘AA’ batteries as the time between them being fine to useless always seems to be a few images. However they are easy enough to purchase if you are on a trip away from your home.

Videos were ok with sound being slightly better but at around 85MB or space per minute in 640 mode it is hungry. However it does support the new SDXC standard which means you can currently buy up to 64GB cards.

For the real novice Smart Auto is available and for those slightly above Auto there are no less than 26 scene modes available.

Doing my Internet searches found the Canon PowerShot SX130 IS at a best price of £149 link below.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00400OK5C?ie=UTF8&tag=gadge0a-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634

www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/Digital_Camera/PowerShot/PowerShot_SX130_IS/