ISO comparison
Increased resolution doesn't necessarily mean better photo quality. Despite the bump from 12 megapixels to 16, the Canon PowerShot SX700 HS' pictures aren't really any more usable at larger sizes than the SX280's and, actually, might be slightly less usable. That said, if you aren't pixel peeping and don't typically enlarge photos beyond 50 percent and crop them heavily, you'll probably really like what you get from the SX700 HS. View larger.
Color
Canon's color quality continues to be a strong point for this line. However, above ISO 800 pictures can look flat and washed out -- another reason to avoid these higher sensitivities.
Creative Shot
Canon's Creative Shot mode automatically creates five different versions of a single shot using different color and tone settings, crops, and styles in addition to saving the original photo. You get some control over the results, however, as you're able to choose a category of filters -- Retro, Monochrome, Special, or Natural -- for the camera to use, with a total of 46 filters available.
Creative Filters
If you're looking for a camera that can handle experimental photography as well as good snapshots, this is an excellent choice. While there are several options for filters and effects, such as the monochrome setting I used here, there are also many color controls to pick from; a Live View mode for simple adjustment of brightness, saturation, and hue; and shutter speed and aperture controls. View at full size.
Full-size image sample (ISO 125)
View at full size. This picture as well as those that follow are available for download to view at 100 percent. These are large files, though, so they may take a few seconds to open.
ISO 160
View at full size. This was taken with ZoomPlus, which is Canon's higher-quality digital zoom that doubles the zoom range to 1,500mm.