Ixus V2 owners, I need your advice

[johnferguson]

Hello everyone,

I am thinking of buying my girlfriend a compact digital for christmas and through intensive web-research I have settled on the Ixus V2.
She won't be taking professional pictures, but she will still probably be framing the odd holiday snap. The only thing she specified was that it should be rechargable rather than take AA batteries. Although the price of the Ixus V2 is a little high for what i am aiming at, it does seem to have all of the neccessary features and it is nice and small (Plus I like Canon products anyway).

I have read many web-reviews, mainly technical and glowing, but I want to hear from actual owners. What is good and bad about it? Is there anything I should know? What accessories are a MUST, and which are advisable? Is the battery life good? Is the flashcard size good enough?

Thanks in advance,

John Ferguson
UK

[Deebee]

Hi John.

I'm been a V2 owner for a little over a month now, and in my opinion everything they write in those glowing reviews is true! Let me start by saying that the primary purpose of buying the camera was to help keep family overseas in touch with our newborn son, rather than to take the most professional of pictures. And the V2 is superb at that.

The quality of the pictures, as far as I'm concerned, is outstanding, both on the computer as well as in print. The AUTO mode that we usually shoot with produces sharp, beautifully toned images. I have now started to try using the manual options (such as setting exposure, white balance, etc), and have also produced extremely pleasing images (not that I am in any way an expert yet). It is also an very easy camera to use, with excellent on-screen menus.

As for battery life, we shoot maybe 15 photos a day (he is our first child!!), and charge the battery every few days. It's never run out on us unexpectedly, and I'm sure we could charge it less frequently (Canon claim that the battery should be enough for 150 pictures with the LCD on). The supplied charger will make your dead battery full of life in about 2 hours.

I think the 8MB card provided is too small, and so we bought a 64MB in addition. We download from the camera every day, so capacity is not an issue, but if your girlfriend wants to use the camera on holidays (and I'm assuming she won't have computer access while away), then she'll definately need more memory.

My only gripes are as follows:

1) Red-eye reduction mode does not seem to have any effect, and so I often use the provided software to retouch the images.

2) Quality of the video clips is somewhat disappointing, although is it perfectly adequate for our needs.

Overall, I'd strongly recommend it.

Danny

[johnferguson]

Thanks very much for your reply Danny.

I was thinking that maybe the 8Mb card was too small, so I think I will buy her a bigger flash card. One of my main concerns was battery life, but you seemed to have put my mind at rest about that.

Thanks again,

John

[stamat0]

Hi John,

I am no Ixus but an s30 owner. But I still can give you an advice.

Do not go for Ixus v2. Get Ixus v3 instead. If it's not available yet at your local stores - wait - there is a month and a half till Christmas. My local Canon dealer does not have it yet, so I checked for price in the internet. A quick google search showed that V3 is just a little more expensive than v2. But here is what you get for the extra buck:
- 3.2 Megapixels (compared to 2.0 Megapixels in v2) - that's the main reason you should go for v3
- 9 point AiAF (compared to 3 point AiAF in v2) - can't tell if that's a plus - I never use the AiAF on my s30 - the focus lock does a better job
- good movie mode - 3 min.x320x200 (compared to 30 sec.x160x120 in v2)
- 16MB flash card (compared to 8MB in v2)
- newer Canon software (ZoomBrowserEx 4.0)
- new Canon processing technologies (digic, isaps) - expected to get better photo quality, better auto decisions, faster response times and longer battery life
- longer support, since it is a newer product

I think the v3 deal is justified.
Here are some Ixus v3 reviews:
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/powershot_s230-review/index_pfv.html
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_reviews/s230.html

As of the Canon brand... Good choice of yours. I had used Olympus and HP cameras before I got my Canon s30 a couple of months ago. And can definitely say that Canon is better. The only thing I dislike in Canon cameras is the red-eye reduction system. As Danny mentioned it's really inefficient. The idea of implementing it through the focus light bulb might have been good but the result usually is not. Actually that's not a big problem for a digital camera since red eyes are easily removed using imaging software. Anyway that's an issue Canon should work on.

About the flashcard size... I'm not aware of a digital camera that comes with a big enough flashcard. 8 or 16MB are enough to shoot a few pictures but not more. Compromising picture quality by going to a smaller size or bigger compression to store more pictures is not a good idea. I'd suggest buying a 64MB or better 128MB. To give you calculation basis - a 128MB card can store more than 80 pictures in 3 Megapixel, superfine jpeg mode. Movies are a big storage-eater but I can give you no movie size stats - never shot more than a couple of those.

Well, that's it.

HTH

Stamat

[johnferguson]

Thanks for the help guys.

I did look into the V3 but eventually decided that it was too expensive. The V2 itself is more than I was originally prepared to pay, so the extra £40-40 is too much. As for the specs I was advised that anything over 2 megapixels is overkill when the camera will only be used for 6X4 prints. Spending the extra money for the sake of 1.3 megapixels which wouldn't even be noticed seems pointless.

I think I have settled on the V2, I was really just looking to see if any owners had come across any major problems \ bugs with the camera, and what, if anything, they would advise I buy with the camera, such as a bigger battery, extra memory, etc.
So often you buy a piece of hardware and then a few months down the line when it starts playing up, you find that the bug was well documented on message boards around the internet. This time I have decided to do my homework!!