Canon Digital IXUS 60

The IXUS series of digital cameras have always been about great features and easily usable functionality in an ultra-compact form factor. One of their recently launched models (in India), the 6-megapixel Canon Digital IXUS 60 is aimed at the starter-level audience that’s looking at great results with minimum fuss. But does it really live up to that expectation?

Build
Being a part of the IXUS series, the camera is tiny with its 86 x 54 x 22 mm dimensions. It weighs as little as 170 gms, making it easy to carry just about anywhere, be it a shirt pocket or a handbag. The size will definitely be an advantage when you’re traveling on vacation, or even just carrying it around on a night out with friends.

The 2.5" LCD screen (173,000 pixels) takes up most of the camera’s back side, along with some basic functionality buttons. The three-stop switch at the back puts the camera into shoot mode, video mode and viewer mode.

The overall camera ergonomics are great, with a build that allows the user to operate the camera entirely with just one hand. That’s exactly what I look for in starter level ultra compacts — ease of use.

Features
A starter-level camera is not really expected to be too hot on extra features, besides some comfortable shooting modes and probably a whole bunch of scene modes that will make shooting under a particular condition easier for the user. Well, the camera is definitely easy to use and get into, but it doesn’t really have many scene modes.

Most users will probably prefer using this in auto mode since its the easiest to access. It offers just a few scene modes namely Portrait, Night Scene and Kids & Pets. The good thing is that it does offer a good manual mode, where you can take some control over the camera’s output by selecting the right white balance, ISO sensitivity level that ranges 80 to 800, and the capture distance (Macro and Infinity).

Taken using 3x optical zoom

IXUS 60 also offers 3x optical zoom, which is like an ultra-compact camera standard, and also offers 4x digital zoom. Of course as a photographer I would advise against using digital zoom, since all it does is digitally expand the image, making it lose its sharpness and quality.
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Performance
The IXUS 60 performs pretty well in auto mode. Only in rare situations (like night-scene modes) would you ever need to switch to manual control. Usually, what you get in auto mode, is pretty much what you’ll get in any other.

The camera does a pretty decent job in presenting lively colors, but it tends to fumble a bit with certain bright colors. For example, all my instances of shooting an orange colored object in its natural light ended up making the object looking red instead. Even when I manually set the white balance by using a gray card, the camera failed to accurately capture orange color. The only way I could get the orange color right was by using the flash on it, which is not really a good idea for a lot of shots.

The actual color of the flower is pink

Macro mode works well when shooting flowers, but the camera did have trouble getting the right focus when the object was too close.

Macro shots often showed a certain lack of focus

I would strongly advise against using the higher ISO modes, as the result will be plagued with noise. This camera was made to work under strong light, and dark places just don’t do too well with the camera.

Taken in Auto mode

Still, a point-and-click user probably won’t be doing the kind of stress tests that we do on the camera, so chances are that these flaws may go unnoticed to the untrained eye. The IXUS 60 is a pretty acceptable performer under regular circumstances.

Conclusion
The price that we got from Canon for this one was Rs. 19,600 but a little research showed that you can get it on the street for around Rs. 17,500. Either way, it’s not really worth the price. You can get some pretty good cameras for much less, even 6 megapixel ones.

The bottom-line is that its an average starter level camera that does a decent job of point-and-shoot photography. It’s built pretty well and is easy to just pick up and use. The price is simply too high for its features and there are better options from Canon itself that offer a lot more for that price.

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Canon Digital IXUS 60 Technical Specifications

Type Ultra Compact Connectivity Pict-Bridge/USB/Composite (TV) Storage SD/MMC Battery
Li-Ion
Body Metal LCD Screen
2.5", 173,000px Alt. View Finder
Optical Sensor
CCD Resolution
6.0 Megapixel ISO Modes
Auto, 80 ,100, 200, 400, 800 Optical Zoom
3x Digital Zoom
4x
Shutter Speeds
1/1500 sec Aperture
F2.8 - F4.9 Image Format
JPEG Modes
Automatic/Manual Scene Modes Auto, Manual, Digital Macro, Portrait, Night Snapshot, Kids&Pets White Balance
Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Flourescent, Flourescent H, Custom Flash Auto, On, Off, Slow, Manual (Red Eye On/Off) Self-Timer 2-10secs Video Res.
640x480 @ 30FPS Video Format
MPEG4 (DivX) Sound
Yes