As if Canon's range of digital cameras wasn't comprehensive enough, the latest round of releases (which also includes the IXUS i5, above) offers even more choice. The IXUS 40 has a 4-megapixel CCD and 3x optical zoom, in a pocketable form factor. It's the first IXUS camera to contain Canon's DIGIC II processing, previously only found in the EOS 300D. This 4-megapixel ultraslim shooter is Canon's strongest entry into the fashion cam space yet. A segment long held by the likes of Casio, Konica Minolta and Pentax, the major Japanese companies have in recent times moved strongly into this niche space. However, unlike its competitors which have gone with a folded lens (Sony Cyber-shot T series and Konica Minolta Dimage X series) or sliding lens (Casio Exilim EX-Z series and most of the Pentax OptioS series) design, Canon has stuck with its straight collapsible mount lens system, claiming better image quality.
Design and FeaturesKicking off with the more straightforward features the Acer aspire 5720 battery 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 nikon en-el5 battery 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.
PerformanceIn our tests, we found the dell inspiron 6000 adapter IXUS 40's achievements to be fairly good. The unit powered up quickly in just over a second with the startup sound and image disabled. For shot-to-shot intervals without flash, the camera could capture images at just over 2fps for eight frames if refocusing is not required. With the flash enabled, the interval increased to 2 seconds between shots for the flash to recharge.
The zoom mechanism was reasonably hushed. However, we'd have preferred if there were more discrete steps; the IXUS 40 has only six such gradations in place. On the other hand, the autofocusing (AF) system was reasonably peppy, taking about a second for all situations -- although the AF may not have managed a lock. Like most cameras, low-contrast scenes proved to be the AF's downfall. On the upside, with the focus-assist beam, the IXUS 40 did fairly well with low-light conditions.
Image qualityThe 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 CANON eos-300d battery 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.
Batteries and Memory CardsCanon 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 memory 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.
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