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:
ISO 80 (100% Crop) |
ISO 100 (100% Crop) |
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ISO 200 (100% Crop) |
ISO 400 (100% Crop) |
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ISO 800 (100% Crop) |
ISO 1600 (100% Crop) |
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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)
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Sharpened (100% Crop) |
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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.
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Example
1 (100% Crop)
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Example
2 (100% Crop)
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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.
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Macro Shot |
100% Crop |
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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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Flash Off - Wide Angle (35mm) |
Auto Flash - Wide Angle (35mm) |
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Flash Off - Telephoto (140mm) |
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 |
Auto (100% Crop) |
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Auto & Red-eye reduction |
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 |
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.
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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
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