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DIGITAL CAMERA
| CANON IXUS 55 |
| P26,500 | |
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Can Canon possibly improve on the Ixus 50?
Back in June 2005, we reviewed the Ixus 50, and said that good things come in small packages. Six months on, here we are with the Ixus 55 in our hands, and we have to add: better things come to those who wait.
While it mostly resembles the 50, with its sleek metal casing, wait till you check out that derriere! The rear panel of the 55 is dominated by a 2.5-inch LCD, an obvious upgrade from the 50's 2-inch screen. Though we had no problems viewing images even under direct sunlight, Canon put a brightness control for the LCD, just in case. Another nice touch is that the camera senses its orientation, and adjusts the image to landscape or portrait mode. Call us mababaw, but the transition effect when scrolling though photos reminded us of a Powerpoint presentation.
Stellar LCD performance doesn't mean squat if the pictures you take are as blurry as last night's bachelor party. Even on auto mode, the 55 consistently cranked out quality photos. Even when we found ourselves in a situation not covered by the built-in shooting and scene modes, a little experimentation with ISO, white balance and “My Colors” provided us with acceptable results. And for those photos that didn't quite come out right, we chose to call them “art”. Macro performance was spot-on – a shot of a muffin was mistakenly labeled as a sponge by a co-worker.
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5-megapixel CCD. 3x optical zoom. 4x digital zoom. 2.5-inch LCD. 9 shooting modes. 7 scene modes. VGA-quality video recording. SD/MMC support. Direct printing to PictBridge-compatible printers. USB 2.0 connectivity. 16MB SD card supplied. AV-output capable.
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Tired of friends asking you which digicam to get? Now you know what to tell them!
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Build quality of the 55 is typical of the Ixus range – mostly metal, and it feels solid without being too hefty. There may be potential long-term issues though with the mode switch, which already felt a bit loose on our test unit. Other caveats worth mentioning are the absence of a battery meter. It's easy to get carried away using a camera as user-friendly as this one. Though the power LED does blink when the 55 is low on juice, make sure the battery is topped up before venturing forth. Lastly, packaging a 16MB memory card with a 5-megapixel camera just doesn't make sense. That'll be filled up in a jiffy, especially when shooting at full resolution. And believe us, the 55 just begs to shoot in Super Fine mode. It's that good. A high-capacity memory card is a mandatory purchase, especially if you get jiggy with the 55's video recording function.
Last June, we asked if the Ixus 50 was the perfect compact digital camera. It almost was. Now, we ask the same of the Ixus 55. Our answer – pretty damn close. Extra emphasis on pretty, please. - Anton Lopez
 Post your opinion or own review!
T3 Magazine Philippines - January - February 2006 Issue
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