Small & Meticulous

Binesh Kutty

Canon has a first too (among the two other digital cameras reviewed this month). This is the first ultra-compact, from Canon's IXUS range, to sport optical image stabilization and a 4x Zoom. And in this small form-factor, you can do a solid 6 Megapixels of snap shooting. Yes! what we have here is an unashamedly point and shoot camera that concentrates more on performance and less on vanity.

After series of pictures clicked under , low-light, ambient lighting, macro mode etc, it is evident that Canon IXUS 800 IS's power element lies in image stabilization. ISO speeds ranging from a minimum of 80 and a max of 800 helps the camera cope with most lighting conditions. And the image stabilization allows you to set a lower ISO that other cameras in this segment, ensuring noise free images. 

Canon IXUS 800 IS Rs. 23,995

Performance Coolness

In the box Lithium battery pack, battery charger, wrist strap, USB Interface cable, AV cable, CD-ROM

Specs 35mm (W) -140mm (T) lens, 6.0 megapixel, 4x Zoom, image stabilization, Digic II processing, SD/MMC Slot, 90.4 x 56.5 x 26.4mm, 165g

What we checked out? Ease of setup and routine use, image and video quality under different light conditions

Pros Compact, picture quality, Image stabilization

Cons Optical viewfinder too small

Verdict

Contacts Canon India Private Limited, Gurgaon Tel: 0124-5160000 Email: info@canon.co.in Website: www.canon.co.in

What you get as an end result is-crisp, clean and rich. What more? You can even shoot, view and print still images in 16:9 format with ease. Although it would have been simply awesome if this baby had shutter-speed and aperture-priority settings included under manual mode.

Coming to the design, it is compact and looks very neat-but certainly isn't stylish and innovative like the Kodak EasyShare V610 and Samsung DV80 we have reviewed this month. Build-wise, Canon IXUS 800 IS is very easy to understand and responsive to use.

The control buttons layout and mode wheel are well placed for comfortable use. BUT – but, the optical viewfinder is painfully small and tightly placed. The beautiful 2.5 inch 173K pixels TFT screen has an added issue-nose rubbing, besides being susceptible to fingerprints. One thing that is appreciable is the selectable lens retraction timing (0 sec – 1 min) which helps in damage-prevention of lenses when idle.

Personally, among the three cameras that we have for review this month (all in an almost same price bracket); I would pick the Samsung NV10 for the coolness, Kodak V610 for the Zoom and Bluetooth file transfer support, and Canon IXUS 800 IS for serious point and shoot photography.

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