Canon Digital IXUS 65 review

Typical price: £249

What is it: Ultracompact digital camera with 3x optical zoom

What we think: It shoehorns a relatively broad set of features, solid performance and great image quality into an attractive ultracompact package

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Canon Digital IXUS 65 Review

Reviewed by: Will Greenwald

Reviewed on: 21 April 2006

In addition to standard automatic and manual exposure modes, the IXUS 65 offers a handful of scene modes. Besides the standard night-time and portrait presets, you'll find options for photographing beaches, plants, snowy days and fireworks. It even has an underwater mode to use in conjunction with the optional underwater housing. Color Accent and Color Swap modes can filter and change colours in the camera, producing smart artistic effects. Combine the camera's 30fps VGA movie capture with the Color Accent modes, shoot a red balloon against an otherwise monochrome scene, add some voice-overs in French, and you'll be on your way to Cannes in no time.

Performance
In most cases, the Canon Digital IXUS 65's performance feels quick. After taking about 1.4 seconds from power-on to first shot, the camera takes a respectable 1.9 seconds between shots, which increases marginally with flash. Its modest 0.6-second shutter lag holds for both bright scenes and dim ones. Its burst shooting zips along at 2.1fps with no buffer constraint on the number of shots.

Image quality
The IXUS 65's photos were pleasing, especially in the low-ISO ranges. At ISO 80, shots look crisp and clear with very little fringing and solid colour reproduction. Images predictably become noisy at ISO 400 and ISO 800, but it isn't so apparent as to render the photo unusable.

The Canon Digital IXUS 65 is an extremely solid ultracompact, with performance and photo quality that more than make up for its few design flaws. It's a surprisingly good shooter, and its feature set makes it quite flexible for a camera of its size. That said, it's basically a more expensive version of the IXUS 60 with a larger screen and no optical viewfinder. If you're willing to give up the big LCD, the IXUS 60 would be a more economical choice.

Shooting speed in seconds
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Typical shot-to-shot time

Time to first shot

Shutter lag (typical)

Canon Digital IXUS 65

1.9

1.4

0.5

Canon PowerShot A530

2.8

2.1

0.5