Canon Ixus 105 review

A-List? Why

So here we have a camera that has no manual controls, loses its predecessor's viewfinder, no HD movies, noisy ISO 1600 images and it gets A-Listed for being .... "cute". Come one PC-Pro, I have been a Canon user for exactly 40 years and adore their products but your credibility here is put to question when there are som many other compacts (esp. Samsung, Panasonic and Fuji) that beat the 105 hands down..

By alexis1959 on 25 Mar 2010

John Liquorish

You get what you pay for. Not everybody wants to spend the extra money for HD that they will not use. I own the 120IS which has what the 105 offers plus the HD movies. Now I dont need to carry around a camcorder that I spent €1200 on for my holiday shots. Wack in a 16Gb SDHC and you can take movies all day and great pictures in a sexy bronze compact format.

By johnliq on 25 Mar 2010

An Improvement?

Despite the Ixus 95 viewfinder being "impossibly small" that is the sole reason I bought an Ixus 95. For those of us whose arms are no longer long enough, i.e. most of those over 50 years of age, an optical viewfinder is essential if one doesn't want to carry specs everywhere. Little point in a pocket size small compact camera if one needs a bag of some sort for the specs.

By goodteam on 25 Mar 2010

Ixus 100 IS

The canon Izus 100 IS answers all of the above the HD video, 12.1 Mega Pixel sensor and optical viewfinder cost 180 Euro in July 2009, so much for progress and higher specs with new model releases!

By Khanage on 25 Mar 2010

Ixus range

Ixus 100IS only has 3x zoom (33-100mm equivalent), a slightly smaller screen and is still more expensive than the 105, if you can find it. As an Ixus fan who has just killed his second one, today I've been trying to figure out the current Ixus range. My 850IS owed me nothing after various scrapes - most notably falling off my car roof onto a dirt track and then being driven over by a car! It still worked fine - gotta love that alloy body. Perhaps that could be a new "real-world" test for the labs?

Anyway, the current range is a mess, as the old models (with IS suffixes from the days when image stabilisation was a novelty) are still sold next to the new ones. The main range is all 12.1MP or 14.1MP (with a few exceptions, see below) - so pixels are no longer an issue. Compared to the 105 :

95IS/100IS : bit cheaper, have viewfinder, only 3x zoom.
120IS/130 : +£40, HD
200IS/210 : +£90, 14MP HD, better screen, faster shutter, 5x zoom 24-120mm but macro distance up from 3cm to 5cm
300/1000 : +150 or more, CMOS (see below)

I had hoped with the two ranges being concurrent that I might be able to get a good deal on one of the better models from the old range, as Khanage implies. But the biggest change in the new range is Canon doing something about their pricing, the new range is around 20% cheaper and most of the general electronics retailers are selling the old range at "old" prices, so a 210 is about the same as a 120IS. You might get lucky with one of the independents though, who actually know enough to price on functionality rather than RRP.

95IS is 10MP VGA, 100IS is 12MP HD.
120IS is 12MP, 130 is 14MP
200 has 3.0" 230k TFT, 210 has 3.5" touchscreen

There's minor variations in dimensions, battery life etc but nothing that is really important for me. One minor thing is that according to Canon's website, the 95IS, 105 and 210 don't support Stitch Assist, which was the only on-camera gizmo I ever really used, it shows the last photo whilst you're framing the next in a panorama. I hope that's not gone, but it's not a killer.

The big technical advance is the advent of CMOS sensors trickling down from their SLR range to replace CCD. At present Canon's CMOS for compacts are "only" 10MP (still plenty), but the big advantages are better sensitivity (3200 ISO versus 1600 ISO for CCD) and much faster cycle speeds - 10x more pictures per second in burst mode. Presumably they are factors that help the upcoming Ixus 1000 support 10x zoom ("30-300mm") and Full HD.

Call me old-fashioned, but I just want to take decent stills, I'm not bothered by video let alone HD. I find touchscreens positively annoying, and I don't really use the screen other than for framing - I dump photos onto my PC asap. I was half tempted when I found a 200IS for under £175 but it wasn't enough to keep me from a 105. I just can't really justify an extra £50 for the improvements in the areas important to me - slightly wider angle lens (but longer macro distance), faster shutter, Stitch Assist - although I did think quite hard about it. And this is someone who happily paid something like £230 for his 850IS. Better low-light performance from a CMOS sensor would be nice, I could always do with more sensitivity, but it's not worth the current premium - it can wait until I smash up my 105....

My only real criticism of the 850IS is the stupid little plastic flap over the connectors - jars with the quality of the rest of the build, and I'm amazed I've not broken it off. I think my biggest request to Canon would not be a better screen, or touchscreen, but a flip one so that I can keep it in my pocket without scratching it - no point having alloy everywhere and then a vulnerable screen. And more waterproofing would nice-to-have - at least heavy-rain-proof if not say 3m waterproof.

Hope this helps some people.

By Big_Hal on 28 Aug 2010