this camera was bought for me as a present, and initially i was very happy with the product. It's won the Which? Best Buy Camera of the Year award 2007. At 7.1MP it's high quality with a small size.
NB. No IS with this camera so any shakes with flash off and pics will be a blur. Anything above ISO 200 is pixelated and grainy, and low-light pictures are not "bright and clear" as claimed.
design the size of the camera is tiny, at 85.9 x 53.5 x 19.4mm and weighing only 125g. It's very small and very light, and easily will fit in your pocket or going-out handbag. It's ideal for night's out. It's fairly robust, it feels solid, although I haven't tested this by dropping it yet! The casing is brushed steel. The lens retracts and in general, apart from the shutter button, everything is inset in the casing, so it's almost a perfect small rectangle. it's a smart looking camera and there is a viewfinder (so when battery is running low you can turn off the lcd display to save energy). the buttons fit well, they are well placed, the only thing is the power button is not always as responsive as i'd like, sometimes it takes a few seconds or i need to press it twice to turn it on and off. there is a straight-to-print button but i haven't tested this and haven't got the right sortof printer
for this, so i can't really comment on this, but for those of you who like to print straight to photo paper this could be a selling point. the navigation buttons are easy to figure out, although there is a manual to assist with this. the photo/movie/playback toggle is very clear and there is no mistaking which setting you are on, so no confusion there either. '''HOWEVER... please do be aware that there seems to be a technical design fault with the Ixus 70 and you will hear a crunching noise when turning the camera lens on and off. There have been many reports on this design fault, and it appears a lot of the models have this fault, but a few do not. Most shops should be able to exchange your model until you find a model that doesn't crunch (god knows what damage it does inside, it's quite a loud noise). ''' one plus is the huge lcd display on the rear of the camera, it's a good 2.5" with anti-glare and anti-scratch material. it does get very smudgey at times and fingerprints show up easily, but it just requires often cleaning. the camera can be fixed to a tripod and i've done this and haven't had any issues.
accessories it is hard to find a nice slim fit protective case for the camera that maintains the small size... many cases are so bulky it counteracts the point of having a small camera to fit in your pocket or small handbag. the only accessory i have bought was a very cheap Tesco valuecamera case, which was the smallest i could find on the market and actually seemed a lot more protective than other cases i'd seen, so do shop around. I recommend SanDisk as a reliable SD card provider. I bought a 1GB card and feel like is plenty enough for the Ixus 70, often the battery runs out far before I have time to fill the card up with 700 photos on the highest quality settings. SD cards vary a lot in price so do some market research before you buy an extra card. The card provided will only take up to 7-9 photos on highest quality settings. You may want to buy a spare battery and I suggest you do, because the battery life is awful and only lasts up to 130 photos.
the charger is nice and small and works well, however it is of the type that cannot be charged at the same time as using it, which can be frustrating (given the low battery life).
features there are plenty of features with the camera. there is a manual mode and it's easy to navigate through the various functions and settings, such as flash (on/off/auto), shot timer (single, 10sec, 2sec, custom), iso (high, auto), and focus (macro, normal, and in manual mode also, infinity). in the menu you can set many different things, such as face detect (very useful for snapshots focus), digital zoom (best quality set to standard), red eye, self temer, iso shift, assist beam, review (aka brief picture playback after taking a photo), auto categories, date stamps, mute, volume, lcd brightness (turn down to minimum you can standard for max battery life), power saving, time zone, date/time, clock display, format, file numbering, auto rotate, lens retract, language, video system, print method, and the themes throughout the camera (for startup image, sound, operation sound etc.). the delete button has an icon and is easy to use. display toggles the display on/off/view settings.
function > there's manual, digital macro, portrait, night snapshot, color accent, color swap, and foliage. if you follow exactly what the screen says, for example if there is a color picker and an < arrow next to it, to select the color it means literally press the < button on the nav circle. read the manual and some things will become much clearer, it seems like common sense but some things are easily missed.
manual setting allows you to change a few more things, including a list of iso settings (80-1600, but quality severely depreciates any higher than 200), infinity focus, continuous shots, exposure (here, you can press MENU button to toggle to shutter speed as an alternative), white balance settings (includes a custom setting), my colors effects (which is an interesting feature, and allows the following: vivid, neutral, sepia, b&w, positive film, lighter skin tone, darker skin tone, vivd blue/green/red, and custom color), focus (evaluative, center weighted average, spot), and the quality settings (SuperFine, Fine, Normal), and image size (many options here, ranges from 640x480 to 3072x2304, and includes postcard and widescreen size options).
There's a lot to play with and you won't be disappointed by the features.
performance Works well, apart from the aforementioned technical design problem with what seems to be a majority of the cameras (i'm the eighth person i know to recieve this camera with this fault). unfortunately, the battery life is one of the worst on the market, but this is only to be expected from a small camera with a small battery. buy spares, or go for a fujifilm if you want something that will last longer than 130 photos (not including playback).
images outcome see flickr.com and search for images shot by canonixus 70 / sd1000 (the usa/ca model title). http://www.flickr.com/cameras/canon/powershot_sd1000/
movie mode there is a movie mode and i rarely use it, but it does work well and gives a clear focused image. there are many settings again to change here, and the option for selftimer. options: (fps, resolution, my colors --see previous options, white balance and more)
conclusion
it's a good compact camera for night's out and snapshots, it offers some interesting and fun options to jazz up your photos. it's not for serious camera users, or those who wish to take many photos before recharging (poor battery life). it's also not great with low-light, if you want quality low-light pictures this is not the right camera.
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May 6th, 2008
exceptional by (10%):
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