Canon IXUS 40 Review
The Canon IXUS 40 is an ultra slim digital camera. It is a stylish model aimed at people who are looking for a digital camera to carry around with them easily and take a variety of pictures without too much fuss and bother.
It is a four megapixel camera with a three times optical zoom lens. The feature set is pretty standard and as cameras go the IXUS 40 is easy enough to use. Overall the camera is likely to appeal to the social photographer rather than someone who is more serious about their photography.
As ever expect to pay a premium for style and its small size.
Image Quality
The IXUS 40 performed well in all the tests without being outstanding. The outdoor shots all produced faithful reproductions of the scenes and conditions at the time the photographs were taken. This is an area where the majority of digital cameras perform well. It didn't quite match the depth of colours that some of its rivals managed to produce, but it coped well with contrasting scenes where areas of light and dark are included.
Indoors the IXUS 40 was one of the few cameras I have tested to over expose (pictures on the bright side) in really low light. This causes a slight loss of detail, but you may find this preferable to some of the darker images produced by other digital cameras. The indoor portrait is fine although there is a slight loss of definition in the hair.
The macro shot is bright and clear when compared to others, but there is some purple fringing to the shot that I haven't come across to this degree before.
Features
Kicking off with the more straightforward features the IXUS 40 has a 3.6x digital zoom facility to back up the optical zoom. For close up work there is a macro facility that lets you get as close as 3cm from the subject.
For composing images you can choose between the viewfinder and the 2" LCD screen. The LCD screen also has a brightness control that can come in handy in lowlight and bright light conditions.
The built in flash unit has a range of up to 3.5m. This reduces to 2m when the zoom lens is in use. There are five different flash settings you can choose from. These are automatic, always on, always off, red eye reduction and slow synchro (normally used at night when you want both your subject and the background illuminated). To further help you take photos in poor light there is an AF assist beam. You may never have heard of this, but they are very useful at helping the camera to focus when it is getting dark.
For when you would like to appear in the picture there is a self timer. This can be set to either a two or ten second delay. You can also add short sound memos to pictures you have already taken. This helps to preserve the memory.
Movies can be shot with the IXUS 40. There are a number of different resolutions available ranging from 640 x 480 to 160 x 120. The larger resolution movies while providing much better quality will fill up the memory card more quickly. The length of each movie you can shoot varies depending on the combination of resolution and frames per second that you select. The maximum size movie you can shoot is 1GB.
All the necessary cables and software are supplied by Canon to allow you to connect the IXUS 40 to a computer, television and a PictBridge compatible printer. A PictBridge compatible printer will allow you to print your photos without the need to upload them to a computer first.
As you get to know the camera you can try out the different scene modes. These help you to take the best possible shot in a variety of different shooting situations. The scene modes available are: Portrait, Night Snapshopt, Kids & Pets, Indoor, Underwater and Digital Macro. A stitch assist function is available to for creating panoramic shots.
Picture Effects can be used to add something different to your pictures. The effects available are Vivid, Neutral, Low Sharpening, Sepia, Black and White.
More advanced features give you access to white balance, exposure compensation, three different types of metering (evaluative, centre weighted and spot), ISO equivalents ranging from 5- to 400 and continuous shooting.
Ease of Use
The IXUS 40 is a fairly straightforward digital camera. There are a lot of points that I like about this and other Canon digital cameras, but if absolute simplicity means everything to you then I do have a personal preference for Sony and Fuji models as a rule.
One feature that is a big advantage on this camera is the large LCD screen. It is a big help when you are composing your images and using the menu system.
Cost
You can pick up a Canon IXUS 40 for around £230 including postage.
Style
There is no doubt about it; this is a good looking camera. It is a standard rectangular shape, but it is much slimmer than the other Canon IXUS models I have reviewed so far. It will slip into a purse or the pocket of your jeans without a problem.
The design also allows for a larger than average LCD screen on the back of the camera.
The dimensions are 86.0 x 53.0 x 20.7 mm and the IXUS 40 weighs in at 130g.
Batteries and Memory Cards
Canon supplies a rechargeable Li-ion battery with the IXUS 40. The advantage of rechargeable batteries is that they help to keep the running costs of the camera to a minimum. All you need to ensure is that the battery is fully charged before you head off to take some important shots. You can buy spare batteries, but this can work out to be expensive.
SD (Secure Digital) cards are used to store images on. The one supplied by Canon is only 16mb and this will soon fill up with four megabyte images and movies. Therefore you will need to consider buying a second high capacity card to go with the IXUS 40. Click here to check SD card prices.
Points I like:
Slim style
Build quality
Large LCD screen
Where it is not so hot:
Buttons on the back of the camera could be confusing.
Summary
I prefer the IXUS 40 to other Canon IXUS cameras. The slim shape makes carrying the camera round easy and the large LCD screen is a further advantage. As with most Canon digital cameras picture quality takes care of itself. In fact it is a good all round model. I also like the build quality. This is one of my favourite digital cameras of this type.
Canon IXUS 40 Back View
Canon IXUS 40 Top View
Sample Menus
Canon IXUS 40
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