Any Heck for the Canon SX740 HS

Loyal Canoner

1

Any Heck for the Canon SX740 HS

« on: 01 / November / 2020, 23:47:42 »

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I owned many Powershots and still actively using SX110, S95, SX50HS and a DSLR. I have just purchased a Canon SX740HS for compact travel with 40X Optical zoom and day-to-day snapshots. I am extremely disappointed with its image quality. My 9 megapixel SX110 produces much sharper pictures than the SX740. Unfortunately, I have SX740 for more than 14 days and cannot return it. For a 21 megapixels camera, whether it took pictures at L, M or S, the quality is the same, that it products pictures at 72 dpi. The L mode is just a larger physical print version of the M, or S. My old SX110 (no raw capability) records picture at 160 dpi and thus produces much sharper pictures than the SX740HS. I also compared the SX740HS pictures with pictures taken by SX50HS taken at the same speed, same ISO and same F-stop setting.
I would like to know if the CHDK program will allow me to improve the resolution (160 DPI) when it is released. Will the heck allows me to take pictures in RAW or jpg with higher than the factory default. I like the camera features in the SX740 a lot but the images are way below my expectation of a Canon camera. Your knowledge and insight are greatly appreciated.

« Last Edit: 01 / November / 2020, 23:52:10 by Loyal Canoner »

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reyalp

14082

Re: Any Heck for the Canon SX740 HS

« Reply #1 on: 02 / November / 2020, 00:13:45 »

There has been some work on digic 8 in the magic lantern forum. AFAIK nothing for end users yest, but if someone gets something working, it will probably be there https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=23296.0

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Don't forget what the H stands for.

A_Wye

2

Re: Any Heck for the Canon SX740 HS

« Reply #2 on: 19 / May / 2021, 03:18:11 »

Quote from: reyalp on 02 / November / 2020, 00:13:45

There has been some work on digic 8 in the magic lantern forum. AFAIK nothing for end users yest, but if someone gets something working, it will probably be there https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=23296.0

Thank you for the reply. Isn't the Magic Lantern Forum is dedicated only to DSLR? I am hoping to improve the picture quality of the CanonPower Shot SX740 HS from 72dpi to 160 or 180 dpi similar to the older PowerShot or have RAW capability.

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reyalp

14082

Re: Any Heck for the Canon SX740 HS

« Reply #3 on: 19 / May / 2021, 13:29:37 »

Quote from: A_Wye on 19 / May / 2021, 03:18:11

Thank you for the reply. Isn't the Magic Lantern Forum is dedicated only to DSLR?

Magic Lantern was originally developed for DSLRs, but in terms of development, how similar the firmware is matters a lot more than the physical form factor. Digic 8 cameras all appear to share similar firmware, so if a hack is developed for any of them, it will likely be the best starting point for the others.

Similarly, CHDK supports some EOS M cameras because they are based on the powershot firmware.

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I am hoping to improve the picture quality of the CanonPower Shot SX740 HS from 72dpi to 160 or 180 dpi similar to the older PowerShot or have RAW capability.

I don't understand what you are imagining would increase the "dpi" of a digital camera, but no software mod going to significantly increase the actual resolution.

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Don't forget what the H stands for.

SX720

43

Re: Any Heck for the Canon SX740 HS

« Reply #4 on: 25 / May / 2021, 22:49:43 »

For the DPI I've dealt with people that had the same confusion like what A_Wye might be having.

DPI is just an EXIF or metadata thing. It hasn't got much to do with the camera except that the new camera might be writing a different DPI value as a part of the JPEG metadata.

DPI is actually something that you for the most part don't have to worry about. Just make the image the size you want in your publishing program or whatever you are doing. Then you can calculate your DPI if you want to. It's just pixels divided by inches. In my opinion the only time you need to worry about DPI is when you are making a low resolution image big. You can use your calculated DPI to decide if you think it will be too blurry when printed and decide if or how much smaller you want to make the image.

Certain programs such as publishing software may use the DPI value as a default to decide how big the image should be but it should be just a default. This might be were the issue is coming from.

For example in LaTeX I can choose how many inches wide or tall I want my picture. The bigger I make the image the lower the DPI will be.

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Joker135

17

Re: Any Heck for the Canon SX740 HS

« Reply #5 on: 03 / June / 2021, 17:56:43 »

Quote from: Loyal Canoner on 01 / November / 2020, 23:47:42

For a 21 megapixels camera, whether it took pictures at L, M or S, the quality is the same, that it products pictures at 72 dpi. The L mode is just a larger physical print version of the M, or S. My old SX110 (no raw capability) records picture at 160 dpi and thus produces much sharper pictures than the SX740HS.

Not quite. The letters set the resolution. The higher the resolution the higher the quality. A good image software can set any image to 9999999 dpi but this does not change the quality or the sharpness at all.

If you copy an image with the resolution of 600 x 900 pixels @ 300 dpi into word then this image will be 2 inches wide and 3 inches high. But you can scale it to 4 inches wide and 6 inches high if you like. So word will print at 150 dpi which looks worse but it's bigger. But you can also scale it to 1 inches wide which is smaller but better looking because word now prints at 600 dpi. So the dpi value stored in the image does not matter because you can scale the size in word. For better quality you need a higher resolution.

« Last Edit: 03 / June / 2021, 18:06:53 by Joker135 »

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A_Wye

2

Re: Any Heck for the Canon SX740 HS

« Reply #6 on: 13 / October / 2021, 00:42:55 »

Thank you reyalp, SX720, and Joker135 for the education. As Joker135 mentioned that the letters, L, M, and S set the resolution of the image as I have expected. In various older models of Powershot cameras that I owned L=highest image quality, M=medium image quality, and S=lowest image quality. With the SX740, I found the quality is the same for L, M or S. I was just disappointed that my 10 years old SX110 at 9 megapixels seems to have a better image than the SX740. I also borrowed a friend's SX730 (160dpi) with Digic 6 and found the image was also better than the SX740. Perhaps it is the limitation of Digic 8 to support 4K video that something else has to give.

Again, thank you for your comments.

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