The new Canon IXUS 960 IS easily holds its own against competition With camera-phones inching towards the 10 megapixel count, is it game over for dedicated shooters? Not if you’re considering the Canon IXUS 960 IS — the latest in the line of premium compacts from Canon holds its own against the competition, and then some.
There’s much to like — the sturdy and polished titanium body, limit-pushing 12.1-megapixel CCD sensor and 3.7x optical zoom lens. All the features of the previous IXUS models are present — face-tracking detects and exposes correctly for the people in the frame, and the IS in the model name stands for image stabilisation, allowing you to take hand-held shots in far lower light than you’d normally be able to manage.
More serious photographers won’t be too frustrated by the 960’s feature set either. As well as the very capable image stabilisation — you get three metering modes, including spot metering, and image review options include a histogram breakdown and warnings for over-exposed areas. Manual mode is a little limited though, and there’s no way of setting shutter speed aside from +/-2EV exposure compensation, and no manual aperture control at all. That, and the fact that the lens’s maximum wide-angle setting of 35mm-equivalent is rather regular for a compact, but it would nice to see a move to 28mm on higher-end models for a true wide-angle view.
Fancy-schmancy features aside, one department where the 960 IS really excels is image quality — excellent colour reproduction, with accurate and well-saturated tones, and exposures that tend to be accurate, even in some tough situations where it would have been a hit and miss for most compacts. And the biggest bugbear for cameras this size, the 960 IS manages to keep ISO image noise under control all the way through till ISO 400, and images are worth printing even at ISO 800. It’s pricey, but you get what you pay for — rock solid build quality and exceptional performance.
• Rating: 8/10
• Price: Rs 24,995 with a two-year warranty
• URL: http://site-in.canon-asia.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=digitalcamera&prod_type=ixus960is
