I received my SX260 last Wednesday and have taken about 700 shots and a few quick 5 minute video. Without writing a novel, here are the high/low points of this unit. In addition to this unit, I also purchased a couple of aftermarket batteries (and after market A/C adapters for about $5.00 each) for about $5.00 each and the batteries work fine. With the battery (original and aftermarket) I was able to get over 300 shots (50% flash) with zooming and playback and the battery meter still showed about 25% charge remaining.

Pro's
Zoom - very long for a subcompact camera 20x optical, total 81x combined (yes 81 times!)
Image Stabilizer - Excellent (far superior than the DSC-HX9V); Even at 81x the picture did not come out of focus, but of course not as sharp. I think it's still acceptable
Scenes - A few scenes; I think the portrait, sepia, B/W works real well (the Portrait+ suppose to blur the picture a bit, but it's not to my liking) It has a few effects (fish eye,... Read more

Canon SX260 HS: I'm happy to say that I was one of the first people to buy this camera. I bought it from one of the sellers on Amazon Marketplace, before it was officially released (it wasn't even available on amazon.com itself when I bought it), plus I got it for much cheaper than its official price (I haven't yet seen it available anywhere else for the same price that I paid for it or cheaper).

I just upgraded from a Canon Ixus 30 (the European model of the powershot SD200), which I've had since 2005. This is a massive upgrade, from having a 3.2 Megapixel camera with a 3x optical zoom (35mm - 105mm) to a 12.1 Megapixel with a 20x zoom (25mm - 500mm). For about a year I was looking to buy a new camera, but couldn't decide which one. I was about to settle on the Canon Powershot ELPH 310, but just then Canon came out with this one.

It's a good camera & quality clear pictures, with a clear & sharp LCD screen.

The camera has the option of changing the... Read more

I just got the camera yesterday so I haven't gone anywhere. How can I say it's a great travel camera? Last summer I traveled for 30 days in China, carrying a backpack, roller bag, and a ScottEVest. As much as I would love to take an SLR, the weight of the camera and lenses I would need, plus being alone with a prominent camera, make taking an SLR impractical and unwise. I was very happy with the NIkon S8100, but I went through two of them (scratched lens on the first; "lens error" on the second. After reading other's experiences trying to get Nikon, I decided to come back to Canon. I looked the Sony travel zooms too and they looked like excellent choices, but I have had good luck with Canon.
While I had glanced at the manual online, once the camera arrived, I wanted to start shooting right away. I didn't wait to give the battery a full charge. The controls are fairly intuitive (finding the scene modes takes a bit of practice). The Auto and Easy focus modes work great (I need... Read more