Commentary on the most interesting tech, photography, design and media links of the day
Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS1 / DMC-TZ6 vs Canon SD1200 IS / IXUS 95 IS: Mat's Opinion – Right at the bottom of the blog post, Mat says:
I guess what I am trying to say, is that if you ask me right now, I am not that impressed with the Panasonic DMC-ZS1. I guess my Canon SD1200IS feels like a better overall camera. But, it is not fair to come to that conclusion already. I have to give it some more time…
Canon PowerShot SD1200 IS / IXUS 95 IS Hands on Review and Sample Photos / Movie Clip at Steve's Digicams – Steve notes:
Our indoor image quality was excellent. The camera did a great job with the exposures and the auto white balance helped to produce accurate colors in all lighting conditions. Image noise is also kept very low, allowing for ISO settings of 400 and under to show very little or no noise. ISO 800 and 1600 are very good for their particular settings, but show more noise than you would like to see in your images.
There is also a gallery with full-resolution sample images and one movie clip (.AVI video file, 640×480, 20.42 MB, 11 seconds) for you to assess the output quality of the camera with.
Extremely positive Canon SD1200 IS / IXUS 95 IS customer reviews on Amazon – This is something you don't see often.
Barely six months after its announcement, and the SD1200 IS / IXUS 95 IS is already garnering favorable feedback from many users – an average rating score of 4.5 / 5 stars based of 54 reviews, at the time of writing.
Canon Powershot SD1200 IS / Digital IXUS 95 IS Review at PhotographyBLOG – Rating Score: 4/5 stars (RECOMMENDED), and Gavin Stoker writes:
We can't even nit pick this time about the levels of noise apparent in the mid to high ISO range. The IXUS 95 IS acquits itself in this area better than many of its competitors and indeed appears improved on its forebear. Shame its colours are slightly drab when the camera is left on its default settings, but as we've noted, by switching to Program mode and selecting the 'Vivid' colour option, such grumbles are silenced.
Mat's opinions on the Canon SD1200 IS / IXUS 95's size, weight, pocketability and dust issues – Mat says:
I own a SD1200is and I like it. It's lightweight and small. The one thing that irritates me is that I usually keep my camera in my (jeans) pocket, which I know is not ideal, but I do it. With this camera, it seems like after a while the lens gets dust and lint on the lens where the "crack" is for the lens cover. Other cameras have not done that for me.
Canon PowerShot SD1200 IS Digital ELPH / IXUS 95 IS Review and Test Photos at Digital Photography Interface – Brad Soo provides an excellent tour and overview of the camera's features and functions in this article.
On the image quality, Brad says:
At lower ISO settings; ISO 80, ISO 100 and ISO 200, the Canon PowerShot SD1200 IS Digital ELPH aka Digital IXUS 95 produces clean, very good image quality. There’s an increase in noise at ISO 400 but picture quality at this point is still good. ISO 800 would be the most you’d want to go; it softens fine details but if you can still use images here for small photo displays and prints. ISO 1600 destroys too much detail to be considered useful.
In the comments, Brad has some bad news for those who want to be able to control this camera via the use of a remote unit:
SD1200 IS Digital ELPH aka Digital IXUS 95 doesn’t have any remote capture capability. This feature has been slowly disappearing over the years on Canon compact cameras and is now only available on expensive/prosumer models in the PowerShot line.
You might like to examine Brad's gallery of full-resolution ISO series test images.
Canon SD1200 IS / IXUS 95 IS Review at CNET Australia – Editor's rating score: 7.7, and Alexandra Savvides says:
Photos were generally very crisp and sharp — perhaps a little over-sharpened though. Colour saturation was also pleasing; the 95 IS gave a particular punch to greens and reds. Chromatic aberration exhibited itself as a slight purple halo around objects, and was a little disappointing to see. There was also a moderate amount of barrel distortion at the widest end, which was disappointing as the lens is a standard 35mm (film equivalent) at its widest.
There is also a video review of the SD1200 / IXUS 95.
There's a ton of great content on this camera at Mat's blog – check it out: