Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Postcard from Marina

As I replaced my camera phone with a smart phone without a camera I thought I would get a point and shoot ultra compact.

The first digital camera I ever brought about seven years ago was the original Canon Ixus. Looking back at the specs it was 2.1MP, 2xOptical Zoom and had enough battery life to take about 40 pictures. It was excellent for its time and it continues to take a nice photo and has nearly bullet proof construction.

Its modern counterpart the Canon Ixus w850 offers 7.1MP, 3.8x zoom, wide-angle lens, image stabilisation and even movies up to 4gb in size. There is a very comprehensive review here. I thought I would try it out with some rather testing situations.

Dubai Marina at dusk :




and a couple of shots in the evening - which really tests these small cameras:



Could probably use a tripod here to reduce judder on the long exposure at night:




I am suitably impressed. The key thing that this little Canon has over the phone camera and the old Sony T7 ultra compact I had is that it has really good performance in low light conditions.

Overall - small, light, great photos - 9/10 (the battery door is a little flimsy)

7 comments:

nzm said...

You won't go wrong with the Canon - their image sensor is one of the best, as you've experienced in the low light conditions.

I have the Ixus 400 and a G5, and love them both.

secretdubai said...

Wow - if that's your view, how about trying some time lapse?

Search YouTube for "time lapse", there is some amazing stuff there. And loads of information online about how to create it.

travel girl said...

great pictures!

Fall In Line.... said...

Good pics..Well Done..!!

Anonymous said...

Nice pics, I used the Canon SD700 purchased 3 months ago and the pics were great. Only thing I disliked about the cam was that the body was so easily prone to scratches. Since it was so compact I would just tuck the camera into my pocket, this created little nicks and smudges on the LCD and tiny scratches on the aluminum body, now the cam looks like it 2 years old. : ( Do you have the same prob with this one?

Aaron said...

Hi Mel - I have tried to avoid carrying around without a case. So it is in good shape so far.

devourbyk said...

Beautiful views and good photos.