Canon IXUS 210 IS Touch

Handy and feature packed camera for every occasion – I have had the IXUS 210 IS Touch for over 12 months now and I really like it. It is light and compact and with its large display it is very easy to check the quality of your photos before they are uploaded to your PC (which is often too late if they are bad!). The IXUS 210 has a very intuitive menu system and it is quick and easy to change settings to suit your requirements. With lots of fun scene options to choose from, you can play around to find a style that suits you.

The lens is good quality with no noticeable vignetting, colours are accurate and vivid and the images are crisp. The camera focuses well and quickly making it easy to take good quality, sharp photos.

With a lowest aperture of 2.8, the camera allows for some nice bokeh and assists with low light situations.

For DSLR users like me the shutter lag sometimes present, especially in lower light situations, can be frustrating but I think this is generally a problem in compact digital cameras.

Switching between stills and video is very quick with the slider on top of the camera.

The ability to take good quality video footage has been very handy but the microphone is poor and seems to pick up more sound from the photographer than from where the subject is. I think it is equivalent to a webcam microphone which would be fine if you were only taking footage to use with backing music (for example; making a family video collection). We have used it to make an instructional video for a primary school class but in future I would use a proper video camera.

The battery has very good life considering the large display which I previously assumed would suck the life out of the battery but I have found I can go a month or more with one charge despite taking lots of video footage and photos.

Of all the cameras I have owned over the years, this has been the first I can confidently hand to others when I have wanted to be included in the shot and know it will take good photos without them stuffing up too much or finding it hard to operate. Even my mum can use it and she can’t use anything that requires power! Value for money, quality photos and video, Canon quality lens Poor microphone quality, shutter lag