With the Ixus 70, Canon comes back to a design from the 90’s. The camera offers rather classic technical characteristics, but all condensed in a miniature body, making it quite attractive.  However, optical stabilization was skipped over, an essential component on these small cameras.  So, is the rest enough to do the job?

In hand 

Small and with its metal and black retro look (seriously reminding us of the first Ixus APS back in 1996), sharp angles, and discrete interface, the new Ixus 70 is quite enticing. However, once you take this camera in your hand it’s a bit surprising. While the metal faces give an impression of solid construction, the all plastic black body is a bit deceiving.  In addition, the lens covering is very flexible and the objective barrel also doesn’t appear too reassuring. Besides these two small imperfections, the Ixus 70 is very enjoyable to use, and only the zoom and trigger button break with the perfect flatness of this camera.   In fact, buttons are set into the body making surfaces smooth. This is both elegant and functional and buttons are big enough to be pressed easily. Like on most Canons, the menu is clear and this compact is quickly understood. The LCD screen is of excellent quality with good anti-reflective coating (though smudges easily), fine definition and perfect fluidity in daylight. In more delicate lighting, the display suffers from flickering and a lack of fluidity. The Ixus 70 has an optical viewfinder (an admirable effort on Canon’s part), however, it isn’t too precise (miniaturizing the image). This small Ixus 70 isn’t any less reactive with startup in less than a second, an ultra fast autofocus, and no delay in shooting.

Quality of images

Overall, the Ixus 70 delivers a satisfactory photo quality for a 7 megapixel. Precision is good and equal to other cameras in its class like the Olympus SP-550UZ, Panasonic FX12 or Fujifilm S5700.  Its rendering however, is a little softer. In tungsten lighting, white balance sometimes makes mistakes resulting in dominance in red and in daylight, this Canon has much better color fidelity. As is often the case with 7 MP sensors, there can be purple fringes in heavily contrasted areas. Noise is also rather accentuated at 400 ISO, and in addition, the absence of optical stabilization can often require increases in sensitivity (notably at night). Luckily, the flash is particularly effective. The macro mode from a distance of 2 cm is excellent and video shooting in 640 x 480 pixels (30i/s) is satisfactory.