I bought this camera a day before my holiday and have just come back after a week armed with nearly 1000 photos. It took only the afternoon after it arrived to go through the menus and get the hang of using it and after only a few photos I knew I had made an excellent choice.
Picture quality was definitely the most important factor for me and I have not been disappointed - quite the opposite in fact. I had my mums Kodak DC4800 camera as a benchmark and didn't think I would get a camera with anything like the same picture quality within my budget let alone better, which this is, by some way at times. I use the medium quality setting (of 3) and the 2nd largest resolution (of 4) and get 1600x1200 pictures of the most amazing quality, even in dull weather. The detail and sharpness is excellent and the focus superb. Half holding the shutter sets the focus and a green rectangle appears on the LCD indicator where the point of focus will be. This gives you chance to change it or use it and you can achieve some great effects. This does mean though that the shutter speed can be a bit slow if you want to catch a shot very quickly.
Size was also an important factor for me and this camera is ultra compact and a perfect size to fit in your pocket. It's fairly heavy but this gives it a feeling of quality and doesn't have the cheap plasticy feel of some cameras.
Feature wise I had a quick play with the manual settings but each time came back to the auto settings as giving the best results for me. For someone who just wants point and shoot and nothing heavy it is fantastic. It also comes with a clever 'photo stitch' setting for some great 360 panoramas!
A bigger CF card is a recommendation but not a must. With the settings I use, the 32mb card that is supplied with the camera holds over 50 photos. However I invested in a 128mb card and that now holds around 220. More than enough for your average 'day out'.
In terms of disadvantages for this camera, personally I have found none that matter enough to put anyone off buying it but there are a couple of tiny gripes.
The first is that there is no running battery indicator. Low power is only indicated when the battery is just about to die and you only get about 4 more photos. On the other hand I haven't found this too much of a problem as the actual life of the battery (so far, it is still new) is quite good. It has lasted all day quite easily, taking about 150 shots and then only takes a couple of hours to recharge in the evening. With a spare battery in your pocket ready to swap I don't think it's a major problem.
Another minor irritation is that the power off sometimes refuses to work until you activate the LCD screen. You can set the display to switch off after a couple of seconds to save on power but you have to reactivate it by pressing a button for the power button respond. Once you get used to it though it's habit to just flick the zoom before pressing the button, but possibly a concern if you're low on battery.
The final 'con' is that the viewfinder doesn't really show what will actually be captured but I have found using the LCD screen to line up the shots far easier anyway. People have said that the screen is too small at 1.5in but this hasn't bothered me in the slightest and it's a compromise I am very willing to make to retain the compact size of the camera.
In conclusion I am absolutely delighted with this camera and would highly recommend it to anyone. It has a far superior image quality to what I was expecting for a camera in it's price range and it's handy enough to carry around with me at all times. I only wish now that I had discovered it sooner.
(For example photos please see http://www.helenlee-designs.co.uk/canonixus400)
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Advantages: Top-notch build quality and design. First rate results Disadvantages: No case! Quite pricey for specification level. Shortish battery life with no clear indicator
BNibbles 22.08.2003 (24.08.2003)
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Review of Canon Digital IXUS 400
Advantages: Top-notch build quality and design. First rate results Disadvantages: No case! Quite pricey for specification level. Shortish battery life with no clear indicator
BNibbles 22.08.2003 (24.08.2003)
·
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Canon Digital IXUS 400
Oct 13th, 2004
very helpful by (100%):
