Canon Digital IXUS 75

By Lori Grunin on 11 April 2007

The Canon IXUS 75 has an attractive design, large LCD, and excellent photo quality for an ultracompact.

7.8 8.5
  • Good: Nicely designed • Excellent high-ISO photo quality • Relatively fast • Above-average movie quality • Face detection
  • Bad: Photos tend to have purple fringing • No optical viewfinder
  • Specs: Digital compact • 7.1 megapixels • 3 inch • 3 x • See more specifications
  • RRP: AU$399.00

Sandwiched between similar 7-megapixel siblings, the Canon IXUS 75 nevertheless manages to distinguish itself as a well-designed, practical option for snapshooters who favour big LCDs over optical viewfinders.

Design
The 130 gram IXUS 75's 92mm by 57mm by 20mm body will fit just as comfortably in a pants pocket. It comes in silver and silver with black accents, the latter design recalling Canon's early film models.

The Touch Dial Control -- so named for its optional ability to display a virtual dial when you simply touch the control -- quickly accesses the small set of shooting options, including ISO speed, flash mode, macro/infinite focus, and continuous/timer. Though it doesn't offer manual or semi-manual exposure modes, it does supply a host of color enhancements and scene modes, exposure compensation, and a choice of three metering modes.

Features
For focus, Canon provides a face-detection AF mode, which automatically locates a face (just one) and determines focus and metering for it. That's in addition to the company's standard AiAF automatic focus-point selector and center focus.

The face-detect AF works reasonably well, but the option is buried within the menus and only works in conjunction with the AiAF; that is, if it doesn't find a face, it falls back on AiAF. This reviewer generally doesn't like the automatic focus selection on any camera -- they never seem to find the desired subject, just the closest. So we don't like the face-detection option stuck in a set-it-and-forget-it location. You may feel otherwise.

Overall, however, we find the IXUS 75's layout intelligent and comfortable to use. It has a big 3-inch LCD for framing and playback. The LCD appears bright and easy to see, even in direct sunlight, although it also tends to look a bit coarse.

Performance and image quality
Photo and movie quality rank high for an ultracompact with its f/2.8-4.9 35mm-105mm (35mm equivalent) 3x zoom lens, and Digic III processor. The photos from the IXUS 75 look a bit better, especially vis-a-vis high ISO noise.

As measured by CNET Labs' tests and in photo samples, the IXUS 75's noise profile generally outperformed the IXUS 800 IS. With the exception of photos shot under our extremely warm tungsten lights, white balance, exposure, and saturation look very good. Movies look equally good, in part because Canon captures in MJPEG, which uses far less compression than other cameras' MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 formats. As a result, a 30fps 640 x 480 movie uses about 2MB per second of storage.

On the other hand, the IXUS 75's performance is acceptable. It takes 1 second from start to shoot, with subsequent photos about 1.6 seconds apart without flash and 2.3 seconds with the flash enabled. Shutter lag measures 0.5 second in our high-contrast test, which mimics bright shooting conditions, and 0.9 second in our low-contrast test, which mimics dim shooting conditions. Continuous shooting was the only disappointment -- approximately 1.6 frames per second regardless of image size.

It may lack the image stabilisation of the IXUS 800 IS, but the Canon IXUS 75 has a more elegant, cutting-edge design, large LCD and -- to our eyes, at least -- better photo quality.

Topics: canon, 75, ixus, digital camera, compact, face detection, 3-inch lcd, ixu, face, focus

Comments (50)

  • fone gave a review on 09/04/2009 18:58 Report abuse

    Very happy with all the functions and pictures quality. Good all rounder for travelers need a pocket size camera packed with features.

    • Good: display
    • Bad: quality
  • businessfone gave 6/10 on 19/03/2009 19:48 Report abuse

    thanks for the canon digital cameras. they are very good.

    • Good: good photos and large screen
    • Bad: Not very good at continuous shooting, even if you lower the image quality.
      - USB port lid is close very clumsy. Will not use USB to often.
      - No battery indicator
  • businessfone gave 6/10 on 03/03/2009 19:56 Report abuse

    very nice post

    • Good: quality color
    • Bad: the information was interesting
  • ray gave 8/10 on 17/01/2009 02:27 Report abuse

    We've used this camera for many off site design projects and have had great results. It's compact and easy to use. I'd recommend it.

  • Searge gave 8/10 on 28/12/2008 03:17 Report abuse

    As for this camera, I find it quite good, especially for everyday use. All this stuff may be found at http://rardir.com/index.php?q=digital+camera.

  • sophie gave 9/10 on 28/12/2008 00:46 Report abuse

    i love this camera!!

    • Good: large screen
      good quality photos
      easy to use
    • Bad: Not very good at continuous shooting
  • Adrian gave 8/10 on 19/11/2008 02:06 Report abuse

    Nice looking, compact camera with heaps of cool options in it. Got this one after exchange my Nikon s600.

    • Good: - Nice pic quality, especially with the flash on.
      - Can do smooth zoom when you take video.
      - Almost 1 hour video shoot capability.
      - There is panoramic image option (they call it stitch assistant).
      - 0,9 seconds only from off to on.
      - wide 28 mm angle lens.
    • Bad: - Not very good at continuous shooting, even if you lower the image quality.
      - USB port lid is close very clumsy. Will not use USB to often.
      - No battery indicator
  • angelinalove gave 5/10 on 24/10/2008 21:09 Report abuse

    Really very nice

    wii

  • Bud Meder gave 9/10 on 23/10/2008 03:51 Report abuse

    Great camera! Sorry, I left the link off the last post. Here: Marietta Real Estate.

    • Good: None
    • Bad: expense
  • Ryan Ward gave 8/10 on 04/08/2008 00:42 Report abuse

    I have not had any problems with it at all. Excellent camera for use when listing Atlanta Real Estate.

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