There’s good news: the Powershot is back in the form of the new Canon Powershot V1. This sees the camera lineup return to a familiar form factor that so many of us have known in this industry for years. There’s little things like that beautiful control ring that goes all the way back to the older Canon S90. Have you ever met anyone in your life that you just found so addicting? No matter how long they’ve been gone you’ve missed hearing their voice? You missed being around them? Well, for some of us, that’s how the higher end Canon Powershot lineup is. There’s also a lot of world’s first for Canon built into this camera that make it a moonbeam in a daydream. But then Canon told us that it’s being announced in specific Asian countries and not in America.
What Photographers Need to Know About the Canon Powershot V1
Here’s what you should know about the Canon Powershot V1:
- There’s a 1.4x crop sensor in there. It’s not as tall as a Four Thirds sensor, but it’s wider. It’s also smaller than the Canon G1x Mk II, which had a sensor size that was slightly larger than Four thirds. This is really a first for Canon as the wider sensor is really lending itself to video in the widescreen format more than anything else.
- It’s mostly meant for shooting video, but Canon allowed it to shoot 22MP still images and give it RAW still capabilities.
- It has both a mechanical and electronic shutter
- There is a 3-stop ND filter built into it
- 16-50mm f2.8-4.5 full-frame equivalent lens
- Dual Pixel AF II, with improved autofocus performance of the Canon R6 II.
- Single UHS-II SD Card slot
- ISO up to 32,000 for stills
- It’s not coming to the US for the moment.
Could Trump’s Tariffs Be an Issue?
Throughout the meeting, I was curious as to why Canon wouldn’t announce a camera like this in Europe and the US. Weird, right? You’d think that the American market would love to have a compact camera like this. I remember we reported on how Canon is moving some manufacturing to China. And so, there may be delays due to problems such as Trump’s tariffs.
There really seems to be a lot to like about this camera. But at the same time, I’m not really sure that it’s something that photographers would buy. I think one of my favorite yoga teachers said it to me best last night, “Why would you do that to yourself? You know they’ll never make it how you want it.” That line has lived rent-free in my head — and it’s probably true about this new camera. Canon has made tons of great Powershot cameras that are currently on the market and do a fantastic job for photography. Why would I want this?
What Photographers Really Want
Here are a few things that I think photographers really want at this point:
- On the high end, a full-frame sensor compact camera
- A nice pancake lens attached to the front of this camera
- The sensor of the Canon EOS R, which was the same as the Canon 5D Mk IV. This found the perfect balance between too many megapixels and too few
- Weather sealing
- Solid battery life
- Canon’s scene detection
- On the low end, a smaller sensor camera could be perfectly fine. Something akin to what Canon puts into their camcorders could work as long as the processor also works well
- A decent zoom range
- Canon’s very cool and fun scene modes and artistic filters like the Tilt Shift thing that they do to your images. Along with the toy camera filter!
Mostly, I think that photographers want something to keep it simple. And I also think that they need to make it into a device that you really want to bring everywhere with you. Unfortunately, Canon has had problems doing that for years.
Honestly, I really loved using the Canon EOS M6 Mk II. If they had made it into a compact camera with a small lens, I would’ve wanted to bring it everywhere with me. But I also would’ve accepted that it wasn’t weather sealed, and therefore I then couldn’t bring it with me wherever I wanted.
I truly hope that Canon finally does deliver a compact camera. Right now, it feels like the brands want to do everything else except what photographers really want.