BIOS: Technology Means Business

The very first thing worth noting about Canon’s Digital IXUS II is that it feels right. This is, we realise, to some extent a subjective matter, but all of the IXUS variants we’ve seen have elicited the same response - they feel well weighted and proportioned, and thus easy to get along with when framing and taking shots.

This is particularly the case where one-handed use is concerned, but there is a very big caveat to go with this point. One-handed use is perfectly fine provided the hand is your right one. Crook the IXUS II in your left hand and you will obscure its LCD, making framing your shot difficult. You’ll also be unable to tap the shutter button with your forefinger. This practical, ergonomic point may make this camera a non-starter for left-handed users.

This is a great shame because the IXUS II has a lot going for it. Its 3.2-Megapixel CCD is enough for most everyday users and the camera can produce A4 prints good enough to share with friends and family. You can take still images at plenty of resolutions from a maximum of 2,048x1,536 down to 640x480 pixels, and movies at 640x480, 320x240 and 160x120 pixels, though the longest movie you can take is just three minutes. There’s also a 2X optical zoom which is raised to 6.4X when you factor in the digital zoom.

The IXUS II is the first from Canon to support SD cards over the company’s hitherto preferred storage medium, CompactFlash. SD cards are smaller and their use has helped Canon make this their tiniest camera to date - it measures just 85x30x56mm and weighs 165g.

Similar to other cameras in the IXUS range, this one has plenty of settings that can be configured automatically or manually. Switching between manual and automatic modes lets you alter image quality, change the shutter speed and even choose an effect (sepia, black and white, and so on). Canon has put plenty of options on dials and buttons on the camera’s casing, and it has implemented a very user-friendly menu system which is accessed through the LCD. We’ve seen this on other IXUS models, but it seems to us worth noting here as Canon continues to strike a good balance between producing a point-and-shoot camera and one that offers key features for more experienced photographers.

We aren’t quite so sure we like Canon’s innovation of incorporating sounds into its digital cameras, however. Yes, it’s nice to hear an SLR-like click when you press the shutter, but the self-timer warning noises which have great potential to be useful are quite often drowned out by ambient sounds. And the startup noise, on the occasions it can be heard, is frankly embarrassing. You can turn noises off, thankfully, and on reflection we think having them on at all just seems to incur an undue drain on the battery. Similarly, we aren’t sure why anyone would want to have a startup image on the LCD. Canon obviously disagrees with all these points and provides facilities for you to use your own images and sounds within the My Camera settings.

Overall, it's a camera’s range of features, image quality and ease of use that matter most, and it’s on these counts that the IXUS II is a very strong performer capable of producing fine images for screen or print.