Canon Digital IXUS 950 IS review

Typical price: £250

What is it: 8-megapixel compact camera with 4x optical zoom

What we think: It has just about everything you'd want in a point-and-shoot

Canon Digital IXUS 950 IS Review

Reviewed by: Philip Ryan

Reviewed on: 14 June 2007

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.

The power button is still in an awkward place but the multi-contoller pad is an improvement over its predecessor's

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.

Shooting speed (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Typical shot-to-shot time

Time to first shot

Shutter lag (typical)

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Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T100

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