With the Ixus 95 IS, we come to the end of the range of cameras Canon released this spring.  It's the least ambitious member of the family, and, despite having fewer pixels, is bigger than the Ixus 100 IS, which it resembles.

However, it has all the automatic modes we could ask for, and a viewfinder.  The 35-105 mm is stabilized and the screen has decent viewing angles, both features that are in this price range.  Will that make it a nice surprise?

Handling

When you're already familiar with the rest of the range--especially the ultra-compact Ixus 100 IS--putting your hands on the 95 IS is hardly an earth-shattering experience.  Although the whole thing is reasonably built, your fingers sometimes rub against the screws, the zoom control is a little fiddly and some elements, like the screen and the viewfinder, seem to have been shoved in.  The curves struggle to hide the camera's shape, and, worse still, it looks even thicker than it really is--but they don't affect the grip which is neither very good nor very bad.

There is one nice surprise, though: the screen on the back doesn't use TN technology, which is affordable but has terrible viewing angles, meaning it's perfectly possible to use this camera to take a photo above a crowd.  We've nothing to add about the menus, which, as always with Canon are simple and clear and provide easy access to all of the most important settings.


In use, the Ixus 95 IS is a typical Canon compact.  It does the job quietly without fuss: it switches on quickly, its focus time is about average, and you can't complain about the time it takes to save photos.  The intelligent automatic mode works reasonably well, and switching to macro mode and activating face detection won't cause it to hang.  In short, it's a pleasure to use.

Image Quality

The Ixus 95 IS didn't surprise us when we used it, and the results weren't anything unexpected either.  At every focal length, there was enough detail, which the least you can expect from a 3x zoom without a wide-angle.  We didn't notice any severe faults, apart, perhaps, from some light purple fringing in the most heavily-contrasted areas.  In general, this is a camera that can stand up to its close competitors like the Panasonic DMC-FS7.



The noise management is nothing remarkable either.  There is noise at 200 ISO in dark areas, while at 400 ISO, if you can stand a little blurriness, then you can still get a decent A4 print.  It's only at 800 ISO that the lack of detail becomes problematic.  The optical stabilization works well, but isn't as powerful as the systems found on some of its competitors.  It was only at around 1/10 s that our portrait test shot was sharp.

Logically enough, the the video mode is limited to VGA resolution with mono sound (Canon is taking its time to integrate HD video in its high-end G-range cameras).  That means we won't be too hard on it for not being able to zoom during filming, as nobody will choose this camera for its video performance.