Little things count
By Aditya Kuber
The Canon Digital IXUS range of cameras has an addition in the form of Digital IXUS 400 – a 4.0mp ultra-compact digital camera. With the IXUS 400, Canon has gone for a clean look.
The case is much lighter (silver) than the earlier models, the brushed lens surround is replaced with a chromed version and the hand-strap eyelet has become a design feature.
The back layout is virtually standard, the major difference being the shooting mode dial and change to a ‘FUNC’ button, which displays the on-screen function menu. The IXUS400 has a bright and sharp 1.5” 118,000-pixel LCD monitor.
It has an excellent anti-reflective coating, which means that no matter what the lighting conditions, you should still be able to clearly see what’s on the screen. The IXUS400 works on Canon’s NB-1LH 3.7V 840 mAh Lithium-Ion battery pack. The IXUS400 has an all-new 3x optical zoom lens. This lens provides an equivalent focal length zoom range of 36 to 108 mm.
Operationally the camera is responsive and always ready to shoot. Features wise, it’s good for an ultra-compact although others are coming into the market with more for less money.
At Rs 50,000, the IXUS400 isn’t the cheapest 4mp camera, and will probably end up competing with 3mp cameras that are almost half it’s cost. Some of the other models in a lesser or similar price range with more or less same features and quality include the Minolta DiMAGE F100, Nikon Coolpix 5000 and the Fuji Finepix S602Z.
The IXUS400 does have its fair share of additional and ‘fun’ features and almost all deliver well. For instance, the photo effects feature allows the photographer to choose from six possible modes – no effect, vivid colour, neutral, low sharpening, and also sepia and black & white. Zooming is quick and decisive, and the camera also offers the options of toggling between spot, centre weighted and multi-segment at the touch of a button.
The IXUS400 allows you to select image size and JPEG quality separately. For JPEG quality, there are super-fine, fine and normal settings.
The super-fine option provides a virtually artefact-free JPEG image. While file sizes are on the large size, it’s a price worth paying for the quality output. JPEG Fine does appear to soften the image slightly (some detail is lost) although it’s hard to find visible JPEG artefacts. The IXUS400 provides four selectable sensitivities of ISO 50, 100, 200 and 400.
The IXUS400 has a typical ‘optical tunnel’ viewfinder, which may be adequate for occasional snapshots at reasonable subject distances, but is no substitute for the ‘what you see is what you get’ LCD monitor. In addition, the IXUS400 viewfinder has no dioptre adjustment and no parallax correction lines.
Operationally the camera is responsive and always ready to shoot. Features wise, it’s good for an ultra-compact although others are coming into the market with more for less money. At Rs 50,000, the IXUS400 isn’t the cheapest 4mp camera, and will probably end up competing with 3mp cameras that are almost half it’s cost. Some of the other models in a lesser or similar price range with more or less same features and quality include the Minolta DiMAGE F100, Nikon Coolpix 5000 and the Fuji Finepix S602Z.
(c) The Economic Times, 2003. As published in 'ET-Personal'.
Posted by Scribbler at 10:49 PM
