Canon Digital IXUS 55 Digital Camera [5MP, 3 x Optical Zoom]
From Canon

Stylish and slender 5.0 Mega Pixel CCD 3x optical zoom with UA lens DIGIC II and iSAPS 2.5" LCD with wide viewing angle 15 shooting modes VGA movies at 30 fps PictBridge and Print/Share button USB 2.0 Hi-Speed Software and CANON iMAGE GATEWAY (Re

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2863 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Canon
• Model: 0319B004AA
• Released on: 2005-08-23
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 11.81" h x 11.81" w x 11.81" l, .66 pounds

Features

• Stylish and slender 5.0 Mega Pixel CCD 3x optical zoom with UA lens DIGIC II and iSAPS 2.5" LCD with wide viewing angle 15 shooting modes VGA movies at 30 fps PictBridge and Print/Share button USB 2.0 Hi-Speed Software and CANON iMAGE GAT...

---

Editorial Reviews

Manufacturer's Description
Elegantly designed with an all-metal finish, the Digital IXUS 55 is slender enough to slip into your pocket. A powerful 5.0 Megapixel CCD sensor delivers photo quality prints up to A3 size with room to spare for post-shoot cropping. An ultra-high refractive index aspherical (UA) 3x optical zoom lens delivers crystal-clear performance in an exceptionally compact form.

The Digital IXUS 55's DIGIC II image processor ensures fast, responsive camera performance and superbly rendered colours. iSAPS analyses each scene and optimises key camera settings even before a shot is taken. The result is immediate high quality images. An extra large 2.5" LCD brings pleasure to framing and reviewing your creations. The monitor's wide viewing angle provides improved visibility for sharing playback with friends and family. QuickBright gives instant screen brightness in bright outdoor conditions. Night Display automatically improves visibility in low light for easy night shooting. You can choose from 15 shooting modes to get that perfect shot. Seven preset Special Scene Modes help achieve great results in tricky lighting conditions.

My Colors allows special in-camera colour effects to be applied to images and movies in real time. You can make extra-long (up to 1GB in size*) 30fps VGA quality movie clips with full audio, and view them with friends and family on the large LCD or connect to a TV for full screen playback. Record fast action sequences at 60fps QVGA quality and analyse them in sharp slow motion.

Printing with the Digital IXUS 55 is a breeze. Simply connect your camera to any PictBridge compatible printer and push the Print/Share button for a full colour print within seconds. Connect to a Canon SELPHY CP Series printer and take advantage of advanced print functions, such as printing ID photos and stills from your movies. Transfer images to your PC quickly and effortlessly with the ultra quick USB 2.0 Hi-Speed connection. Canon's ZoomBrowser EX (Windows) and ImageBrowser (Macintosh) are included for editing and organising photos, movies and slide shows. CANON iMAGE GATEWAY** provides 100MB of web space for sharing your photos online.

Box Contents

• Digital IXUS 55 Camera
  
• Wrist Strap
  
• SD Memory Card
  
• Battery Pack NB-4L
  
• Battery Charger
  
• AC Cable
  
• AV Cable
  
• Interface Cable
  
• User Manual Kit

---

Customer Reviews

Excellent!
Didn't have a clue about these things before I got one, I just knew I wanted one. Bought this after a reccomendation from a friend and it is brilliant.
It takes EXCELLENT pictures, and a decent memory card can hold about 130approx pics. If you want to do vid's then get a big mem card, but they ain't that expensive and the quality both pic and sound is amazing. and the best thing is you can upload everything onto your PC and send em to yer pals.
it's an excellent buy for a very good price.

So good, I bought two of them...
This camera is fantastic. The pictures it takes are awesome and the videos are great as well - it's amazing how much you can fit onto a 2GB SD card - that's over a thousand of the highest quality images and several minutes of video. There's too many settings to use on this thing - all I really play with is the Night Snapshot view (improves nighttime images of buildings and suchlike), the flash and the default setting. It's so tiny that it can easily fit into a shirt pocket or combats pocket.

It starts up, and is ready to take an image, in no time at all. The screen is clear and bright and big enough to get a good look at even when holding it above your head, trying to get that interesting angle on your target.

What's the only really poor thing about this camera? Well, it'd be really nice to have a good optical zoom on it - but they're all the same these days - hard to find anything about 3x, but this tries to get to 12x with a 3x optical and 4x digital - be prepared for nothing to look good at that level of zoom though.

It is a sturdy little thing - with a reassuringly tough all metal casing - but I would still recommend you getting a soft leather bag with drawstring to carry it around.

StitchAssist software is excellent too. Well, I mean that it's very simple to use and I have managed to get excellent results from using it. I took a 5 image panorama and StichAssist pulled them all together really well, I only had to do a little bit of manual tweaking on one join... and that took about a minute. I now have an excellent panoramic image that people have had a really close look at - they think it's brilliant.

For the panoramas, I will be getting myself a little tripod too.

As for Support, register with Canon and they'll look after you. I got some piece of dust caught in the camera somehow - it wasn't on the lense, and it wasn't on the screen - somewhere inside... well Canon allowed me to send it off for repair - 10 days later it was back - fully repaired and free of charge. Can't say fairer than that.

Canon IXUS 55 after 6 months
Generally I've been very impressed with this camera although there are things I'd change. The whole thing is well thought out. The layout of buttons and menus within the camera is clever and intuitive. I've found the software provided for organising and viewing photos on the computer very good. It's got a nice weighty feel to it which probably keeps camera shake to a minimum. Before I bought it I was sure I'd just use it as an occasional alternative to taking my bulkier non-digital SLR around and that it wouldn't take well enough or give me enough control to replace my SLR. As it turns out I haven't used my SLR since getting the ixus - it's been much easier to carry, less intrusive when taking pictures of friends and has enough features (e.g. manual control over shutter speed and aperture, good black&white, great macro, great video) and sufficient megapixels to (almost) replace my SLR.

Bad points:
- The battery life is too short. When fully charged it has lasted me two days of moderate to heavy use. I imagine it's mainly the big screen that drains the power. I considered compromising size slightly and going for a Fuji that takes AA batteries. The screen can be switched off to save power but with only a token viewfinder that is hard to look through and doesn't give an accurate idea of what will be in the shot, you probably won't want to. It is definitely not a camera for those who prefer to use a viewfinder. I bought a second battery (non-Cannon manufacturer for about £9 from an Amazon marketplace seller) which is a pain to carry around but worth it, I think.
- Recently I've noticed that when the lens retracts into the case there's a quite clunking sound that worries me. Although it doesn't seem to affect the operation of the camera I intend to get it checked.
- I expected better build quality from Cannon. The button used to switch from camera mode to video and play modes is flimsy. Considering it's such an important button it should be better quality and much easier to push. The little cover for the A/V and USB sockets is a bit awkward and is attached to the camera by a flexible plastic hinge. The hinge feels like it takes a lot of strain when holding the cover open and I can't see it lasting that long, however, I've had it for 6 months and it's OK so far. - I regret spending £15 on the Cannon leather case - it makes the camera bulky and unless you've spent time in the army and like attaching things to your belt, the belt attachment is useless. There are plenty of other cases around for less money which are less bulky and sometimes have a pocket for memory card or a spare battery.
- If you're fussy about the appearence you may not like the fact the camera body is easily scratched, as is the screen. I'm sure Cannon could have added an extra perspex-type screen like you get on other makes that would protect the delicate LCD surface from damage.

In conclusion, despite all the bad points, it's a lot of fun and I'm pretty sure I'd still choose this over other cameras in this price bracket.