Canon Digital IXUS 100 IS Digital Camera

Author's product rating:   

Picture Quality	Excellent
Range & Quality of Features	Diverse
Ease of Use	Very Easy
Durability	Excellent
Overall Look & Design	Good
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	Small, tough, simple and fast to use
Disadvantages:	A little expensive

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

First of all let me explain that I'm actually reviewing the Canon IXY 210 IS. It's the exact same camera, but the name and model number are for the Japanese market.

Second of all let me mention that I only take photos to remember places I've been or nights out, I know nothing about photography and so will not attempt to explain anything technical. This review will compare with other cameras I have used, my experience is somewhat limited.

So, a little history. I first owned a little 2MP Sony camera, it was tiny and nice to look at and the photos weren't too bad. Later I upgraded to a lovely little Canon IXUS I, I got on with it very well and produced what I considered to be some decent photos. Then somebody stole by beloved little IXUS and I was forced to buy a new camera. What came next was some Konica Minolta dimage thing that I never liked and could only be charged via some giant docking station thing, that was soon on eBay. Finally I ended up with a small Samsung camera, the buying decision consisted of finding something cheap and I got lucky as there was a deal to get another free camera with it, which I promptly gave to my girlfriend for Christmas, amazing generosity I know :-)

The Samsung was alright, I think I wrote a review about it on dooyoo saying it was pretty much idiot proof, stick it on auto and carry on. Eventually I started to realise that it wasn't as good as all the other cameras in the world. It could never detect a backlight situation, it always blurred indoors, the flash went off flooding the pictures with light when really just a longer exposure was needed. Well, eventually I'd had enough and bought what a really wanted....another Canon!

Using the camera

Everyone that has tried to use this camera has found it easy to use. I simply leave it in the auto position and it detects whats going on. You can see what it's up to, as the little box in the top left of the screen tells you when it switches modes. If you're taking some close up photos to sell your old camera on eBay then it automatically knows to use the macro feature. It also detects the dreaded backlight situation, so it knows to use the flash rather than leave your fantastic portrait shot looking like a silhouette. Of course if you were looking for that effect, you can easily press a button to disable the flash. It did get this wrong on one occasion though, but otherwise it's worked fine.

Good news for me is that it seems to be more sensible about use of the flash than many other cameras. I was always reluctant to leave the flash switched on with my Samsung as it seemed to use it when it wasn't required at all. The Canon seems to produce a nice sharp image in most indoor situations without resorting to using the flash, giving a more natural image. It will use it when needed though.

The optical zoom is 3x, not a particularly high number, quite standard on compact cameras. There's a little dial around the button to take a photo, an intuitive place to put it in my opinion.

If you're looking to produce some videos for youtube then it does produce high defintion video, but without the optical zoom. You can achieve playback directly to your TV via the HDMI connector on the camera, first time I've seen that feature and a great idea I think.

I've been using a 4GB SDHC card in the camera and the photo write speed is very good. What really impressed me however was the read speed, if you are viewing your photos you can cycle through them very quickly indeed. It even rotates the photos if you are viewing landscape photos in portrait.

Setting up the camera is quite easy, well for me it was when I'd found out how to get it out of Japanese! The menus are friendly and there's nothing you can change that will completely ruin your photos. If you stick with the auto then I think you'll be safe. There is a button to program the camera, to alter important settings for taking photos, but as I have no idea what I'm doing I stay well away from it.

Other features of note would be the self shot timer, I tried it, it does what you'd expect. Also there is a good old fashioned viewfinder, not 100% sure why you'd want one.

When taking a photo I've always liked the way the Canon gives you some feedback on what the ISO rating is (even if I don't understand it) and also some little green boxes to show what it's focussing on. It has face detection too, it had no trouble spotting people and using them as a point of focus, even from a good distance. Another little icon you may see when taking a photo is the anti-shake, I think this comes into play in slightly dimmer conditions when the flash isn't going to be used, it lengthens the exposure and then corrects the image if you're not holding the camera perfectly still. This works very well, as mentioned, indoor photos look great.

The best little information icon is it shows you as you press the button if it will use the flash, handy if you are somewhere where you are forbidden to use the flash and you forgot that it was enabled.

On a similar flash realted note, I will also mention that it remembers things, for example if you set the flash to be off and switched off the camera, it'll be that way when you switch it on again. That's a positive feature for me, I was forever having to switch it off on my last camera.

Design

The camera is available in four colours, silver, gold, red and black. It's a brushed metal finish and the colour covers the camera except for a black bar around the edge.

The edges are round which makes the camera a more comfortable fit in my jeans pocket next to my phone, keys and coins. I don't bother to buy cases for things so it is picking up a few marks on the outside, but the 2.5 inch screen is surviving so far.

In my opinion it doesn't look like the most stunning camera, others are more shiny, better looking and have better screens, but it feels kind of rugged and I think it's going to survive the tough life that it will experience until I lose it somewhere.

The lens is motorised and emerges from the camera when it is switched on. I think there has been a trend in small camera to avoid a protruding lens, it would certainly save on space. With the lens situated towards the centre of the camera and not the corner I'm pleased that I'm no longer taking photos of my finger holding the corner of the camera :-)

Theres the standard tripod screw at the bottom of the case if you want to attach it to a tripod.

The battery charger is seperate and the camera takes a NB-4L Canon battery if you have one to recycle from an old camera. The charger is small thankfully.

Specs

I said this wasn't a techie review and please mark me down if you're finding it useless as a result, I'm just trying to give an honest opinion on how I'm finding using it from my point of view. Here's the specs anyway, lifted straight off the Canon websie.

* Ultra-slim IXUS design
* 12.1 MP
* 3.0x optical zoom with optical IS
* Smart Auto mode with Scene Detection Technology
* DIGIC 4
* Motion Detection Technology
* Face Detection Technology
* 2.5” PureColor LCD II
* i-Contrast
* HD Movies (1280x720, 30fps) and HDMI connection

AN UPDATE! Some info on those extra functions

I was brave and had a look at those other menus. You flick the switch from auto and there are many adjustable settings. Here's a little detail, though without any knowledgable explanation.

* 6 program settings, Program yourself, Portrait, Night Snapshot, Kids & Pets, Indoor and Sunset
* ISO settings from 80 to 1600
* Lighting settings, for different light conditions, some preset and customisable
* Colour settings, to alter the mood of your photos I guess
* Evaluative settings, to choose how it focusses
* Single or multi shot

There is also the option to change the quality and size of the image, this is also available from the auto settings. There may be more and I'm glad to report that whatever you change, a flick of the switch and it's back to auto.

Cost

You can safely ignore the suggested retail price on cameras, it only serves to make you feel better about spending money on a camera, you think you're getting some kind of bargain deal :-) I believe it is £299 for this model.

The IXUS 100 IS can be found for around £220 at the moment, which isn't an ultra competitive price. I think however that the quality of the camera over others that I have looked at makes it reasonable value for money and I am still pleased with my purchase.

Summary

I'm realling enjoying using the Canon and it lives in my pocket most of the time now, before my camera would always be in a jacket pocket or a bag somewhere.

It's not the cheapest of compact digital cameras and I have no idea if it is significantly better than others, but it's a real improvement over previous cameras for me and it seems to suit my needs. Of course if you are going to do some serious photography then please read some information from somebody that knows about these things :-)

(also posted on dooyoo)