Hawk vs. Camera

I ruined my Canon PowerShot SD990 by carrying in my pocket without a case.  Dust worked itself into the camera until every photo had splotches.

New Camera Requirements:

• pocket size
• Canon brand, if possible
• long zoom (for birds)
• manual controls, especially aperture (for isolating plants)
• 
  

I settled on the Canon PowerShot SX210.

Zoom range: 5mm --> 70mm
Translated into old 35mm film terms, that is 28mm --> 400mm

Here is a scene at 15mm (equivalent to 50mm, "normal human perspective")

The same scene at max optical zoom (equivalent to 400mm)

Finally I crop the photo in the computer (perhaps equivalent to 1600mm!)