Image quality
Images from the 950 IS are very impressive. Colours look accurate, there's plenty of sharpness, especially for a compact camera, and at its lowest ISO settings, we saw no appreciable noise. In fact, noise doesn't even begin to encroach until you reach ISO 200. Even then, it's just a very light covering of off-colour splotches that are barely visible on computer monitors and won't show up at all in prints.
Noise remains similar at ISO 400, with a just-perceptible increase that still won't mar your prints much, if at all. At ISO 800, noise becomes more pronounced, robbing some finer image detail, and adding film-like grain to prints. Surprisingly, while darker colours become washed out at this point, there's still a fair amount of shadow detail.
At its highest sensitivity setting of ISO 1,600, most fine detail is obliterated by noise, and lots of shadow detail is lost. Rather than a fine grain, the noise becomes larger and causes a nasty blotchy look overall. We recommend staying below ISO 1,600 if you plan on making prints and below ISO 800 if you plan to make prints larger than 200x250mm (8x10 inches).
Conclusion
There's very little to complain about on the 950 IS. Fans of ultracompacts, such as Sony's T-series, might find this Canon isn't small enough, but given its excellent image quality and speedy performance, we're not complaining. Also, unlike those Sony cameras, this one includes an optical viewfinder, for situations such as concerts in which an LCD might annoy those around you.
Bargain hunters are likely to baulk at this camera's price, but again, its features and performance make it worth the premium over a bargain-basement camera.
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
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Typical shot-to-shot time | |
Time to first shot | |
Shutter lag (typical) |
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Additional editing by Kate Macefield
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User reviews4
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gesa 27 March 2008
Good: High quality
Bad: Too many pixels- 6m would be sufficient
Comment: It is easy to use and the picture quality is very agreeable. Nice colours. All in all I would recommend it!
brian Jones 16 March 2008
Good: This is a great camera until like a lot of Cannon compacts it develops the dreaded E18 fault now seen as "lens fault restart camera"
Bad: E18 fault after 13 months
Comment: This camera would receive 10 if it was not for what i think is a basic design fault!! Camera devlops the dreaded E18 fault for no apparent reason cost of repair the price of a new camera!!! So much for Cannon service
J Moore 11 September 2007
Good: Slick, intuitive controls and foolproof, top quality images.
Bad: Only a 32Mb SD card included as standard.
Comment: This was a distress purchase, after losing my camera on the first day of a two week tropical holiday (doh!). In such circumstances, I was prepared to be disappointed with my purchase. To my surprise and satisfaction, this camera just gets better and better with use. It is solid and dependable, yet flexible and responsive. I'm making full use of all its features, yet the controls are so intuitive I've yet to read the manual - all the main features are accessible with simple yet positive thumb movements. The quality of the photographs is very pleasing, benefiting from very effective image stabilisation. An excellent all round camera (as my 550 holiday photographs testify).
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