Canon Digital IXUS 210 Review

3.5

March 18, 2010 | Mark Goldstein |

Buy a IXUS 210 Black Digital Camera (14.1 Megapixel - 8.9 cm 3.5" Active Matrix TFT Colour LCD - 5x Optical Zoom - 4x)

Buy a PowerShot SD3500 IS Silver Digital Camera (14.1 Megapixel - 4.30 mm-21.50 mm - 3.5" Touchscreen LCD - 5x Optical Zoom - 4320 x 3240 Image - 1280 x 720 Video - HDMI)

Lowest Price: $290.00

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 14 megapixel Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 3.5Mb.

The Canon Digital IXUS 210 produces images of above average quality. The biggest issue is noise and loss of detail at relatively slow ISO speeds. The 1/2.33 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 a little 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 210 handled chromatic aberrations quite 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 no 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 fine, allowing you to focus as close as 5cms away from the subject. The images were a little soft straight out of the Canon Digital IXUS 210 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. The lens exhibits quite obvious barrel distortion at the 24mm wide-angle setting.

Noise

There are 6 ISO settings available on the Canon Digital IXUS 210. 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 a little soft at the default sharpening setting and benefit from some further sharpening in a program like Adobe Photoshop. You can also change the in-camera sharpening level to suit your tastes via the My Colors menu option.

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

Focal Range

The Canon Digital IXUS 210's 5x zoom lens provides a focal length of 24-120mm in 35mm terms, as demonstrated below.

24mm	120mm

File Quality

The Canon Digital IXUS 210 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 210 handled chromatic aberrations quite well during the review, with some purple fringing present around the edges of objects in certain high-contrast situations, as shown in the examples below.

Example 1 (100% Crop)	Example 2 (100% Crop)

Macro

The Canon Digital IXUS 210 offers a Macro setting that allows you to focus on a subject that is 5cms away from the camera when the lens is set to wide-angle. 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 210 are Auto, Flash On, Slow Synchro, and Flash Off, with Red-eye Correction and Red-Eye Lamp settings available via the Flash Settings main menu option. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (24mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (24mm)


Flash Off - Telephoto (120mm)	Flash On - Telephoto (120mm)

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

Flash On	Flash On (100% Crop)


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

Night

The Canon Digital IXUS 210's maximum shutter speed is 15 seconds in the Long Shutter mode, which is good 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. The camera takes the same amount of time again to apply noise reduction, so for example at the 5 second setting the actual exposure takes 10 seconds.

Night Shot	Night Shot (100% Crop)

Anti Shake

The Canon Digital IXUS 210 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 210 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.