Camera Labs

Hello.

This is my review of Canon's Digital Ixus 75 or, as it's known in North America, the PowerShot SD750 Digital ELPH.

The Ixus 75 is a compact digital camera, with a Canon 3x zoom lens and a 7.1 megapixels resolution.

Power on and focusing are very fast, so if you see an opportunity, switching the camera on and getting to shoot a picture will take you under one second. Of course, if the built-in flash is needed, that will take about one second or so to charge.

To review your pictures, you get a 3" LCD, which is enough. Rotating the camera also rotates the picture. You also can see some basic information, such as mode, ISO speed, aperture number, shutter speed, white balance and even a brightness histogram.

It has the usual preset modes, such as landscape, portrait, etc. If you choose full manual, you can adjust exposure compensation, white balance, force the flash to be used, etc.

Canon has fitted the Ixus 75 with its "face recognition" algorithms. If you choose to use these, pointing the camera at someone will draw a rectangle over that person's face, reassuring it has that part of the picture in focus. But turn it off when taking pictures of subjects other than people, as results in this situation can be mixed.

Of course you can also choose the size and quality of the photo files. At the highest setting, these will provide you with very nice A4 prints.

The main purpose I use this camera for is to take pictures of machinery and spare parts, which often happens indoors and under very difficult lighting. It does a good job. Having taken the pictures, the camera itself, with its 3" screen can be used to show them to other people, without need to find/wait for a printer. It fits nicely in a pocket, so it's very easy to carry around.

So all in all, a very nice compact camera from Canon, that fits in your pocket and seems to get things right almost every time. Certainly a good value. Oh, and it looks good, too!

PS: I haven't experienced using the camera to shoot a small movie yet, as I don't really have a need for that.

Nice review, thanks Luis!

What's the noise like at higher ISOs?

Gordon

These are 100% crops, taken at different ISO settings. These were taken indoors, with very poor lighting conditions, flash off. The camera was standing on a solid support, using a 2 seconds timer, so no chance of camera shake.

The photos were taken at "large JPG, highest quality" The crops were made using Canon's own software, at "highest quality", so I would expect there to be little or no loss from the original.

The whole photo looks like this, the white rectangle is the crop:



From left to right, you can see crops taken from photos taken at ISO 100, ISO 800 and ISO 1600:



My own opinion (and I'm certainly not a professional) is that ISO 800 is usable for most purposes, while ISO 1600 is downright unusable.

Just out of curiosity, here is a crop of the same subject, taken at the same time, and at ISO 1600, using a Nikon D40, with NEF/RAW and Nikon's own software to crop (still no flash, camera standing on a solid support with 10 sec timer):



For full details on the settings of each photo, please see here (Flickr).

Regards.

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Nikon D90 + MB-D80 + SB-600 + AF-S VR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 + AF-S 35mm f/1.8 + AF 85mm f/1.8 | My photos on Flickr.

Only after reading a different thread have I realised I should have provided 100% crops for comparison. I've edited my previous post to give you that.

Sorry for being such a n00b.

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Nikon D90 + MB-D80 + SB-600 + AF-S VR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 + AF-S 35mm f/1.8 + AF 85mm f/1.8 | My photos on Flickr.

Very nice comparison.
Here you have it: The D40 at ISO1600 is comparable to the IXus (probably) at ISO200. So you gain 3EV headroom with the larger sensor.
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Forget the "n00b", you're doing quite well, Luis!

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

Thanks for the crops Luis... very interesting...

Gordon