Canon Digital IXUS 130 Review

4.0

March 24, 2010 | Mark Goldstein |

Buy a IXUS 130 Silver Digital Camera (14.1 Megapixel - 5 mm-20 mm - 6.9 cm 2.7" LCD - 4x Optical Zoom - 4320 x 3240 Image - 1280 x 720 Video - HDMI)

Lowest Price: N/A

Buy a PowerShot SD1400 IS Silver Point & Shoot Digital Camera (14.1 Megapixel - 2.70" Active Matrix TFT Color LCD - 4x Optical Zoom - 4x)

Lowest Price: $280.00

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 14 megapixel JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 4Mb.

The Canon Digital IXUS 130 produces images of above average quality. The biggest issue is noise and loss of detail at relatively slow ISO speeds. The 1/2.3 inch, 14 megapixel sensor recorded noise-free images at ISO 80 and 100, but there's already some noise and slight colour desaturation at ISO 200. ISO 400 shows more noise and loss of colour, and ISO 800 and 1600 are even worse, with obvious loss of fine detail and further colour desaturation.

The Canon Digital IXUS 130 handled chromatic aberrations well, with limited purple fringing effects appearing in high contrast situations and generally at the edges of the frame. The built-in flash worked well indoors, with little red-eye and good overall exposure. The night photograph was excellent, with the maximum shutter speed of 15 seconds being long enough for most after-dark shots.

Anti-shake works very well when hand-holding the camera in low-light conditions or when using the telephoto end of the zoom range. Macro performance is good, allowing you to focus as close as 3cms away from the subject. The images were a little soft straight out of the Canon Digital IXUS 130 at the default sharpening setting and ideally require some further sharpening in an application like Adobe Photoshop, or you can change the in-camera setting.

Noise

There are 6 ISO settings available on the Canon Digital IXUS 130. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting.

ISO 80 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)


ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)


ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)

Sharpening

Here are two 100% crops which have been Saved as Web - Quality 50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images are just a little soft at the default sharpening setting. You can change the in-camera sharpening level if you don't like the default look.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

Focal Range

The Canon Digital IXUS 130's 4x zoom lens provides a focal length of 28-112mm in 35mm terms, as demonstrated below.

28mm	112mm

File Quality

The Canon Digital IXUS 130 has 2 different image quality settings available, with Fine being the highest quality option. Here are some 100% crops which show the quality of the various options, with the file size shown in brackets.

14M Fine (3.1Mb) (100% Crop)	14M Normal (1.4Mb) (100% Crop)

Chromatic Aberrations

The Canon Digital IXUS 130 handled chromatic aberrations quite well during the review, with some purple fringing present around the edges of objects in high-contrast situations, as shown in the examples below.

Macro

The Canon Digital IXUS 130 allows you to focus on a subject that is 3cms away from the camera. The first image shows how close you can get to the subject (in this case a compact flash card). The second image is a 100% crop.

Macro Shot	100% Crop

Flash

The flash settings on the Canon Digital IXUS 130 are Auto, Manual Flash On / Off, Slow Sync Speed and Red-eye Reduction. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (28mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (28mm)


Flash Off - Telephoto (112mm)	Flash On - Telephoto (112mm)

And here are some portrait shots. As you can see, neither the Flash On or the Red-eye-Reduction settings caused any red-eye.

Flash On	Flash On (100% Crop)


Red-eye Reduction	Red-eye Reduction (100% Crop)

Night

The Canon Digital IXUS 130's maximum shutter speed is 15 seconds, which is great news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 15 seconds at ISO 80. I've included a 100% crop of the image to show what the quality is like.

Night Shot	Night Shot (100% Crop)

Anti Shake

The Canon Digital IXUS 130 has an anti-shake mechanism, which allows you to take sharp photos at slower shutter speeds than other digital cameras. To test this, I took 2 handheld shots of the same subject with the same settings. The first shot was taken with anti shake turned off, the second with it turned on. Here are some 100% crops of the images to show the results. As you can see, with anti shake turned on, the images are much sharper than with anti shake turned off. This feature really does seem to make a difference and could mean capturing a successful, sharp shot or missing the opportunity altogether.

Shutter Speed / Focal Length	Anti Shake Off (100% Crop)	Anti Shake On (100% Crop)
1/15 sec / 24mm
1/6 sec / 120mm

My Colors

The Canon Digital IXUS 130 offers 11 My Color preset effects that you can use to change the look of your images, and you can also create your own Custom Color.