Canon Ixus V

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.

This Canon Ixus V Digital Camera has been alltogether nice to own. Unfortunately, the quality of the picture (2.2 Megapixels) do not match up to today's technical avantgarde. It must be mentioned, that alltogether it has been a great deal the camera. Easy to operate, though it takes a while to understand that in order to take a moving picture, the launch button must be depressed a little bit before being depressed fully. Also if you want to take many pictures in a row, turn the flash off (it takes ages to reload). And yes, I do recommend buying one of these if you can get it cheap or used, otherwise, invest your money in something more modern.

The Canon Ixus V is a great little digital camera. I have owned the Ixus V since it was first released and paid over £350 for it. The picture quality is excellent for 2.1 MP. the movie function is great and allows good little snippits of video action. You have a point and shoot mode for newbies as well as a semi manual mode for the more advanced user. (this is quite limited though)

The only things that lets the camera down for me is the lack of optical zoom (limited to 2x) although most cameras of this size are limited to this. And the battery life - you WILL need a spare battery especially if you use the TFT screen

Altogether a great camera and I have taken over 200,000 snaps so far :o)

Excellent picture quality. Since purchasing the Canon Ixus V in September have only actually printed off 2 pictures from over 750 taken. Very easy to use digital camera by anyone not technically biased, and the movie feature provides great memories of those special moments.

If buying additional memory though don't go to the shops - buy on the web at www.crucial.com

This little Canon Ixus V digital camera packs a big punch. It has loads of facilities for such a small camera such as Movie with sound and the ability to make it as easy or as complicated to use as you like. The quality is excellent both in the pics taken and the feel of the camera. It has a very rugged aluminium shell that also makes it look the dogs b£$$lks. Well worth it, but if you want really high definition pics than go for 3.1mp or higher. I bought mine in the Carribean for $300 brand new with 96mb card and loads of pc stuff such as a docking station all thrown in. Buy it there if you go to the carribean, it's cheap as hell.

The Canon Ixus V is an excellent compact digital camera from Canon. This camera supercedes the original Digital Ixus and has the added advantage of movie mode with sound! I have not really used this feature and use the camera more for taking photos.

The quality of the photos is excellent. My 64MB CF card can hold approx. 400 photos of medium resolution and compression. I have had some photos printed at Boots and the quality is actually better than my previous Canon APS compact.

You can leave the camera in auto mode and it adjusts the settings automatically or you can use manual mode and adjust things like white balance and exposure compensation yourself. It is easy to get the hang of using manual mode and is useful when taking nightime shots - it gives excellent results.

The battery is rechargeable Li-Ion and has never run out on me yet - although the biggest battery drain is use of the LCD so keep this to a minimum and you are OK.

The flash is sufficient and has red-eye reduction and auto-mode.

The camera has a feature called "Stitch Assist" whereby you can take 2 or 3 or more photos of a scene and the supplied software 'stitches' them together to form what looks like a single photo - this gives excellent panoramic shots and it extremely easy to use.

In summary, an excellent, easy to use digital camera that I think is much much better than APS and 35mm compact cameras. The real beauty is not having the hassle or expense of getting your films developed, which also means you take lots more photos as a result!