Everybody say "Ooooh!" (Canon Digital Ixus)

Member Name: archfiend

Product:	Canon Digital Ixus
Date:	04/01/01 (917 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Gorgeous, simple, small, 'oooh' factor

Disadvantages: expensive, only 2* zoom

*click*

The Digital Ixus shares many design characteristics with its non-digital Canon cousins. It's tiny, shiny, gorgeous to look at, easy to use, and has a high "Oooh! Can I play with that?" quotient.

Let's not knock the dinkiness factor when evaluating personal electronics. We can be posh and call the Ixus a 'design classic' if we like, but the fact is that it's a dinky (if you're female), sexy (if you're male) piece of kit that is a lot of fun to own. Ultimately that's the best reason to buy one.

If you're looking at digital cameras at all, then you probably know the pros and cons of going digital. I'll run through a few of them here anyway.

Pro:
* Instantly able to evaluate your shot -- great for those of us with short attention-spans
* No need to squander vast sums on film and developing (although you can go to Boots or Jessops and get them to print your digital pictures on photo-grade paper if you want)
* Easy to get pictures onto the PC -- no need for a scanner

Con:
* Don't expect the impressive optical zoom or many extra widgets that you can get with an SLR (digital photographers usually add their effects in post-production)
* Expensive to buy the camera itself, compared to an equivalent non-digital

The Canon Digital Ixus has a 2* optical zoom, and a 4* digital zoom (which I don't much recommend). It has a flash which is set up to flash twice quickly to avoid redeye.

It uses CompactFlash cards to store pictures on -- CF is now becoming something of a standard in this media, which means that the cards are easy to get, and so are card-readers for the PC should you wish such a thing.

Canon also bundle the Digital Ixus with a cable and CD of software for downloading pictures from the camera to PC via the serial port. I found it very easy to set up and use. The camera will happily take pictures in fully automatic
mode (ie. point-and-click), but gives you the option of a few manual settings if you want to try some other things out.

In practice, I found myself taking a lot of indoor shots without the flash -- but you need a tripod or a steady hand to really pull this off. It also seems to do very well at closeups of people and faces.

Summary:

A gorgeous looking piece of kit that is a pleasure to use. But you will be paying for the general sexiness of it. It's quite possible to get a camera with better performance for less dosh, but ... it won't have the Ixus-factor.

If you want an easy, dinky, painless little point-and-click digital camera and you don't mind paying a bit extra for the *ahem* design classic that is the Ixus, this _is_ the camera for you.


The absolute cheapest price I found for it was in Dixons in Heathrow Terminal 1 -- so if you have any holidays planned, it's definitely worth saving up big electronics purchases for the (not)Duty Free.

Summary: