Canon Digital IXUS 950 IS Review
(also known as the Canon SD850 IS)
Review Date: August 16th 2007
Author: Gavin Stoker
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Image Quality
All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 8 megapixel SuperFine
JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around
3.5Mb.
Noise
There are 6 ISO settings available
on the Canon Digital IXUS 950 IS which you can select at
any time if the camera is in the normal shooting mode. Noise
starts to creep in visibly above ISO 200, becoming more pronounced
at ISO 800 and really quite intrusive at ISO 1600. That said,
the IXUS 950 IS is pretty good at avoiding the effects of
camera shake under such circumstances, and even at its highest
ISO setting the effects are not quite as obviously Impressionistic,
even 'pointilist', as some of its competitors.
Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for
each ISO setting:
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.
Chromatic Aberrations
The Canon Digital IXUS 950 IS handled chromatic aberrations well during
the review, with small levels of coloured fringing mainly
present
around the edges of objects in high-contrast situations,
as shown in the examples below.
Macro
The Canon Digital IXUS 950 IS offers a Macro setting that allows you to focus
on a subject that is 2cms away from the camera. The first
image shows how close you can get to the subject in Macro
mode (in this case a compact flash card). The second image
is a 100% crop.
Flash
The flash settings on the Canon Digital IXUS 950 IS are Auto,
On, Auto Red-eye Reduction, Slow Synchro and Off.. These
shots of a white coloured wall were taken at a distance of
1.5m.
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Auto
Flash - Telephoto (140mm) |
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And here are some portrait shots.
Neither the Auto setting or the Red-eye reduction modes caused
any amount of red-eye.
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Auto
(100% Crop) |
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Auto & Red-eye
reduction (100% Crop) |
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Night Shot
The Canon Digital IXUS 950 IS's maximum shutter
speed is 15 seconds, which is good news if you're seriously
interested in night photography. The shot below was taken
using a shutter speed of 1/30 second, aperture of f/2.8 at
ISO 1600. I've included a 100% Crop of the image to show
what the quality is like.
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Night
Shot (100% Crop) |
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Overall Image Quality
In short, if well saturated, flatteringly colourful and healthy images straight
out of your camera are what you're looking for from a snapshot
digital compact, then the Canon Digital IXUS 950 IS doesn't disappoint
– with the results looking particularly vivid to this reviewer,
having come off the back of reviewing the much more naturalistic
results from the likes of Olympus E-410 and E-510 DSLRs. Though
the camera gives its best performance under clear blue skies,
such conditions also result in a loss of highlight detail
– the creases on
a white shirt for example – while, inevitably perhaps, there
are also instances of pixel fringing between areas of contrast.
Still, the IXUS 950 IS' reds, greens and blues really 'zing'. However,
when it comes to low light shooting without flash it's another
matter. Noise starts
to creep in visibly above ISO 200, becoming more pronounced
at ISO 800 and really quite intrusive at ISO 1600. That said,
the IXUS 950 IS is pretty good at avoiding the effects of
camera shake under such circumstances, and even at its highest
ISO setting the effects are not quite as obviously Impressionistic,
even 'pointilist', as some of its competitors. Generally speaking this is a camera
you'll be able to leave on auto and 90% of the time be rewarded
with results that you'll want to keep. Shame it doesn't shoot
wider at the wide angle end of the zoom for those groups
shots and landscapes, otherwise you'd have a camera that
encompasses just about all you'd want from a point-and-shoot
pocket digital these days.
 PhotographyBLOG
is a member of the DIWA
organisation. Our test results for the Canon Digital IXUS 950 IS have been submitted to DIWA
for comparison with test results for different samples of
the same camera model supplied by other DIWA
member sites.
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