Canon Digital IXUS V2

The Canon Digital IXUS V2 is a very nice camera. Beautifully small and compact without feeling the slightest bit delicate in use.

The IXUS V2 has a comprehensive array features and facilities. What they are and how to use them can be quickly learned with the aid of the concise instruction book. A task made easier by the fact most selections and options are accessed by simple on screen menus.

The quality of the pictures taken by the IXUX V2 are nothing short of superb. I can find nothing to fault them whether they are taken with or without the flash. It has to be said that such top quality pictures are obtained with the camera in Auto mode too. Whilst you have the option of full manual control, I have little inclination to take the camera out of Auto mode in all but the most unusual of circumstances.

The 8MB memory card supplied as standard is of limited practical use if you wish to take pictures of the best possible quality, ie. at the highest resolution and lowest compression level. It is good for only six or seven pictures of this size. A 64MB or higher memory card is a much better proposition. A 64MB card will store around sixty 1600x1200 resolution images with superfine compression.

Battery life can be quite good. I have found a single charge sufficient to fill a 64MB card with mixed use of the flash. My advice would be to use the optical view finder to frame your pictures whenever possible as it quickly becomes obvious that the LCD screen makes heavy demands on the battery. In any event the battery charges quickly in around 2 hours and the charger is supplied with both UK and continental European mains leads.

The ability to take short video clips is an interesting novelty and in good light the quality isn't bad at all. The only practical limitation of these clips is their file size. Notwithstanding the memory card space they will use a 10 second (320x240) clip can typically be 4 or 5MB in size. If you plan to e-mail the clips to friends or family this may be a little on the large side for some.

The only other minor practical failing of the camera can be the time it takes for it to take the picture one the "button" is pressed if you are using the flash and the battery is not as fresh as it could be. This delay is only a couple of seconds but that can be enough for the moment to be lost. The flash ready indicator will not light up until after the auto focusing has settled. The auto focusing only activates once the "button" has been pressed full or part way down.

Unfortunately I was not as impressed with the supplied software. Quite plain and simply the drivers would not install, from the CD, on to my PC (Windows 98SE) as per the software instruction book. It was only after extensive trial and error and downloading the same drivers from the Canon website that I eventually got everything working properly. Once the drivers are installed you are free to use any imaging software you like that will access and acquire from TWAIN drivers. I prefer Paint Shop and Photo Explorer (you will need the latest V7 to acquire video clips). I did briefly try the ZoomBrowser software supplied by Canon but found it offered nothing that other software doesn't do better. A number of other utilities are supplied including a printing utility and imaging software by ArcSoft.