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Review: Having recently lost my Digital Ixus (the original model, not the V!), I decided to wait for the V3 rather than go for the V2. I found the V3 easy to use - and certainly much easier than my previous camera when it came to image previewing, as one can zoom right in and move around the image to check focus, etc. The video feature is a gimmick, being limited to 30 seconds and having none of the image stabilisation & zoom features one expects on a 'real' video camera - however, it's a nice one, and more useful than I thought it would be, aspecially at the higher resolution (640x480). When viewing images full-size on a computer screen, the seem as sharp as with my previous camera - and as the V3 is 3MP rather than 2MP, this means pictures print larger, better. The camera has a robust feel, and the flap over the compact flash slot has been redesigned - a weak point in the earlier model. My gripes? Well, it would have been nice if the USB connector could be used to charge the battery - or even just run the camera, so the battery was not drained when transferring images or using the time-lag exposure features. It would also have been nice if the camera could have been used as a webcam, and if there was a way to use the microphone to annotate pictures (the main competitor for the V3 is probably the Minolta Xi, which offers both audio annotation and audio note-taking - but does not seem as robustly built as the V3). Perhaps the V3i model will address these points! Finally, whilst the older version of the ZoomBrowser was clunky, I much prefer it to the new version - amongst it's other faults, it will not recognise remote file systems. (I use the software on my laptop, but prefer to keep the main archive on a shared volume on the main home computer so that all is not lost if the laptop breaks or is stolen). Despite these faults, I would still recommend it if you are looking for a high-quality, easy-to-use digital camera that is small and robust enough to take anywhere and offers a degree of control to the creative user. Make sure you buy a bigger CF card though, together with a spare battery and camera case. Canon - how about an adaptor, one end of which clips into the battery charger and the other end goes in the battery compartment of the camera? |
Digital Cameras
