There have been a slew of digicams aimed at the non-professional user in the last couple of years. On the one hand, there are the cheap-as-dirt basic point-to-shoot's that just about take the photos you want to save as memories without giving you much freedom to tweak the settings or play around with your pictures. The other kind hovers around the lower price range of a DSLR and make you wonder whether you should just go for a DSLR instead! The Canon IXUS 1100 HS belongs to the latter category of clickers. Launched in the market recently, the Canon IXUS 1100 HS has been in my backpack for a few weeks.
Look and feel
The camera feels sturdy in my hands and despite the smooth, polished surface, it doesn't feel like it's going to slip off inadvertently. The shiny surface however makes the body of the camera prone to smudges.
The shutter is placed at the usual top right on the camera and the ring enveloping it functions as the zoom in-zoom out toggle. Instead of laying out Auto and Preset modes within the menu, there's a switchable physical button that lets you alternate between the two.
The 3.2-inch LCD screen takes up most of the rear of the camera with only a black rubber strip running along the edge that houses the Play switch. The fact that the IXUS 1100 HS comes with a touchscreen gives it a definite edge over button-only cameras. It allows tap to shoot, giving you more flexibility than a plain shutter button.
Shutter happy
I flagged off my testing of the cam with a bunch of shots taken in the Auto mode. The images were true to life and colour reproduction was accurate. However, sharpness wasn't great when I zoomed in to the final photo on my computer screen.
In the Auto mode, you can tweak some functions on the screen itself. Instead of having an altogether different button to switch between still and video modes, you have a touch button right on the screen, which starts recording a video the moment you touch it. This, while the camera is still in the regular ‘Still' mode. In addition, you have the usual Flash controls and an icon to deactivate the touch Shutter function. This switch also doubles up, on a long press, as a screen layout editor. There's also a Function touch-button that lets you activate the Self-timer, change photo resolutions and image and movie quality.
The preset modes include Movie Digest that takes a clip with each shot to make a day's summary
I turned on the ‘Foliage' mode and went around taking shots at a flower bazaar. The mode did enrich the colour levels a fair bit, making the flowers look bright and fresh. The ‘Super Vivid' mode bumps up the saturation levels, but sometimes unnaturally so, making the shot look obviously post-processed.
The camera comes with a 12x optical zoom and probably due to an efficient image stabiliser, zoomed in pictures aren't too blurred. The zoom lens provides a range equivalent to a 28-336mm lens on a 35mm camera.
One problem with the touchscreen was the fact that it did not register my taps and presses as accurately and as quickly as I'd have liked it to. The only time it was unfailingly sensitive was when I had ‘Touch Shutter' activated. For a generation way too used to capacitive touchscreen smartphones, the resistive touch interface on the Canon IXUS 1100 HS feels ‘unresponsive' at times, also because you can't really swipe through the functions. Flicking through different functions is not an option; instead you must use arrows to move back and forth to navigate through the menu. This makes browsing through all the features a bit tedious.
The ISO levels on the Canon IXUS 1100 HS range from 100-3,200. While the lower ISO levels (100-400) gave me clean images, by the time you jump to ISO 1,600 the noise is quite apparent. However, even at ISO 800, the stills were pleasantly devoid of grains.
The camera lets you shoot videos in 1080p HD resolution at 30 fps. I shot some videos with the camera using a tripod and the results were sharp. The mic picked up voices clearly and volume levels on the recording too were quite high. There are a few presets to use for videos as well - iFrame Movie (videos exclusively for Apple devices), Super Slow Motion and Miniature effect.
The battery life on the Canon IXUS 1100 HS was no great shakes. On a full charge, the camera let us record a few videos which were about eight minutes in length and take about 30 shots before it drained out. A point to note is that touchscreen cameras will obviously have shorter battery life than non-touch ones.
The Canon IXUS 1100 HS scores well on image quality and colour reproduction. More than a handful of preset modes make sure you have ample permutations and combinations of functions to capture any image you want reasonably well. However, there are digicams with bigger megapixels and as many functions on offer for a lower price tag as well.
Love: Good images, decent build, range of modes
Hate: Interface sluggish at times, poor battery life, a bit pricey
Rs 24,995
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