Canon Ixus V Review

Overall Rating

Excellent picture quality (for the resolution)
Small and portable
Robust metal construction
Easy to use
Fantastic in low-light

Battery life is not brilliant
Limited manual control
Only 2.1Mp

The Canon Ixus V is an old digital camera camera now, so on paper it's 2.1 mega-pixel resolution seems poor in comparison to modern cameras, which may come with anything up to 8Mp or beyond, but let's not be blinded by that. 2.1Mp is more than enough for a quality image to fill a computer screen, or for a good quality A4 print. Moreover, there is much more to a quality digital image than resolution alone, and many cheaper modern cameras still deliver a worse picture, even if on paper they have more dots on the page.

I've had this camera for four years, and shot several thousand images in that time; more than enough to pay back double what I spent on it in terms of the film and processing costs I've saved. The quality of the images it produces still surprises me; pin sharp pictures with vivid colour and detail, each perfectly exposed and more natural looking than a lot of the stuff I used to take on film. The image processing in this camera is second-to-none.

It excels in low light, able to take bright pictures in situations where many cameras fail, and as long as you keep a steady hand, flash is often not necessary. Flash is present though, and features the usual red-eye reduction, together with a slow-sync mode that I'd encourage anyone to have a play with; coupled with the camera's exemplary performance in low light, it can produce very natural images with just enough non-intrusive flash to fill in the blanks. It's also useful as a fill-in in daylight situations, helping to pick out the detail in any shadows. Also present on this camera is an auto-focus assist lamp, which helps the camera focus in low-light.

Manual control is sadly lacking. You can adjust the exposure plus or minus a few stops, but you can't set the shutter or aperture yourself, and you can't manual focus either, but you can at least control where the auto-focus locks onto, as the shutter button is two stage - depress one stage to set the focus and exposure, then recompose if you want before firing.

Finally, unlike most recent models (Canon's included) there's virtually no plastic on the outside of this camera. It's virtually all metal and feels it, and it's certainly taken some punishment while I've owned it; including being dropped onto rocks, resulting in little more than a scratch. It's a very well made little camera, and very durable.

If you can get this second hand for a reasonable price, I'd seriously recommend it.