Canon Digital Camera IXUS 40
(Powershot SD300)
Personal Opinion
Personal opinion
Pro:
- The size and weight of the camera are ideal for slipping into a pocket
- The speed of turning on and firing is very fast!
- A good combination of automatic and manual options.
- The battery is small, and can be recharged so running costs are zero.
- The orientation sensor automatically rotates portrait photos (and
apparently also helps to improve the white balance algorithm).
- Helpful panorama modes and easy to use stitching software.
- Full-speed and full-resolution video mode, made possible
by the faster processor inside the camera.
- Large LCD.
Con:
- No case is supplied with the camera!
- The supplied memory card is a bit of a miserable size too.
- The battery is non-standard so you need to buy spares if going on holiday.
But very few cameras take AA batteries anyway.
- There is no indicator showing how much battery capacity is left. One minute
it works fine, the next it says "replace battery" and refuses to work.
Comparison:
- The user interface has taken a great step backwards compared to the 400,
as it is now much more difficult to achieve some operations. Finding the
panorama stitch-assist mode is nearly impossible. On the 400 one simply
rotated the mode dial, but on the 40 it takes 14 button presses!!!!
- The switch by the shutter release has reverted to the old IXUS v3 style,
ie. it has three positions, play, record, record video.
- I've read that the fringing effect is worse because of the smaller lens,
but I have yet to experience this.
- Turning on the camera is much faster; it is ready to shoot almost instantly!
- Turning off the LCD after some inactivity is useful.
- Compare with my comments on the Canon IXUS v3
and the Canon IXUS 400.
- It's too early to make any more comparisons, but I'm off to test it
in Tahiti so I'll let you know when I return...
Sample photos:
Both taken at maximum resolution in Automatic mode. Stupidly I left the 400
set to Superfine quality but the 40 set to just Fine quality so you may see less
JPEG artefacts in the 400 photo.
Batteries:
- The battery which came with the camera is rated at ~750 mAh.
I suspect it won't last as long as the battery on the 400 because of
the larger LCD. Presumably the LCD auto turn-off will help there.
Summary:
- Don't let the negatives put you off; this is a very fine camera for the price.
(But not Jessops' price; they claim to price-match UK internet stores, but when you
ask them they say it's not possible for them to sell it so cheaply.)
Problems
Please see the problem section on my IXUS v3 page.
These issues are common to all digital cameras but it's worth being aware of them.
Supplied software
I still haven't found my perfect photo management software but there is
one good thing about the supplied ZoomBrowser: simply open up a window on
a directory containing your new photos and it automatically rotates the
images to the correct orientation (landscape/portrait). Neat feature!
It uses information (embedded in the image file) from the orientation sensor
in the camera. Make sure you upgrade to the latest ZoomBrowser (see below).
Other software
Download the Epson Print Image Matching
Photoshop Plugin which allows image files to have a different colour profile
applied, supposedly better quality colours. Version 2 is the latest one I can
find, even though version 3 was announced in August 2004.
Driver
Windows XP does not need a driver if you just want to download the photos
from the camera (it uses PTP mode). However you can install a
TWAIN driver (Windows 98,2000) or WIA driver (Windows ME,XP) to access
the camera if you want.
At the time of writing the latest WIA driver is 6.4.0 and TWAIN is 6.5.0
Firmware
No new firmware yet. If you can hack it to make Stitch Assist mode
easier to find then let me know (it's suposedly just x86 code).
Links
Contact me
mail arb if you have any comments, questions, or would like to see some more sample photographs.
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