IXUS used to mean stylish, silvery, skinny camera from Canon, well I guess with the advent of the Canon Digital IXUS 980 IS its time to drop the silvery part. The flagship model of the IXUS line features many IXUSs first: never-seen-before Black body design, manual exposure settings and a 14.7 MP sensor (!!). Are they useful? Lets find out now.
The package includes the camera, a battery pack, a battery charger, a data cable, an AV cable, a strap, a CD-Rom and a users guide. There is no camera case included.
Turn the dial to change between different camera modes and movie mode. Although Canon promises full manual control, it doesnt mean you get the same aperture-priority and shutter-priority mode in the Canon A-series camera. I have a hard time understanding why a for-style camera cannot have the proper exposure controls.
The wheel also serves as a 4-way D-pad. You can change the ISO settings, flash, focus mode and drive modes with the D-pad. The wheel provides an intuitive way of changing various settings without the need to look at the screen.
Unsurprisingly, the camera possesses face detection focusing, AF-Point zoom and Servo AF (continuous auto-focus). The screen is a relatively modest 2.5 screen (230,000 pixels), which is barely enough for the 14.7MP pictures!
You can customize the button to the top left of the wheel to 1 of the 12 possible functions. I think the Display Off and WB functions are urgently in need of a separate button, of course you are entitled to think otherwise.
The Canon Digital IXUS 980 IS excels in pixel count and body design. The manual exposure mode is a nice addition, but the lack of aperture/shutter priority modes leave us something to be desired. The zoom range is a meager 3.7X zoom, which is hardly a perfect match for the powerful 14.7MP sensor.
The package includes the camera, a battery pack, a battery charger, a data cable, an AV cable, a strap, a CD-Rom and a users guide. There is no camera case included.
Turn the dial to change between different camera modes and movie mode. Although Canon promises full manual control, it doesnt mean you get the same aperture-priority and shutter-priority mode in the Canon A-series camera. I have a hard time understanding why a for-style camera cannot have the proper exposure controls.
The wheel also serves as a 4-way D-pad. You can change the ISO settings, flash, focus mode and drive modes with the D-pad. The wheel provides an intuitive way of changing various settings without the need to look at the screen.
Unsurprisingly, the camera possesses face detection focusing, AF-Point zoom and Servo AF (continuous auto-focus). The screen is a relatively modest 2.5 screen (230,000 pixels), which is barely enough for the 14.7MP pictures!
You can customize the button to the top left of the wheel to 1 of the 12 possible functions. I think the Display Off and WB functions are urgently in need of a separate button, of course you are entitled to think otherwise.
The Canon Digital IXUS 980 IS excels in pixel count and body design. The manual exposure mode is a nice addition, but the lack of aperture/shutter priority modes leave us something to be desired. The zoom range is a meager 3.7X zoom, which is hardly a perfect match for the powerful 14.7MP sensor.