Buy Now...

click image to enlarge

The Canon Ixus 1000HS measures 10x6x2cm and weights 187grams, my unit was gold in colour except for the face that was a chocolate brown although it's also available in red and silver.

This unit is ‘10’ by that I mean 10x optical and 10mega pixel. Perhaps that is why it has the name 1000 to keep with the ‘10’.

The 2cm width can increase to a maximum of 4.5cm when you are fully zoomed. Apart from the lens on the face there is also the slit flash mounted above and to the right of the lens and in non zoomed configuration it is 3cm from it.

See also: Digital Cameras

more

The right side has a door hiding a mini HDMI socket as well as a mini USB one; this side also has the anchor point for the supplied wrist strap. The left side of the camera is clear. The base has a tripod screw and two doors right next to the tripod screw is the door hiding the ‘D’ shaped battery, along the other end is a door behind which you expect to find the battery but is just the place where any SD card you use resides making the unit slightly left heavy.  

The top has a three position slider, movie, still and auto. Next the chromed on/off button and then the slightly raised shutter button with the wide angle / telephoto movement around the outside of the shutter button. This leaves the back.

Totally dominated by the TFT 7.3x3.8cm giving the notional 3.25inches diagonal measurement. To the right of this a single button – the quick way to capture video – then the ubiquitous five position joystick below this two further buttons that look almost like one the top half is ‘Menu’ and the bottom the ‘Review’ button to view what is captured on the unit.

click image to enlarge

The various image capture modes are 10MP L 3648x2736, 6MP M1 2816x2112, 2MP M2 1600x1200, S VGA 640x480 and W 3648x2048. All are available in fine or normal compression, far less image size choice than normal and I would suggest M1 for A4 images as M2 is probably just not enough for the perfect A4 print. Using normal compression an image at this resolution would take around 500-600KB and they print fine at A4.

For movies there is 1920x1080, 1280x720, 640x480 and 320x240. In the largest size you would use at least 250MB per minute of space.

Of course the unit has image stabilization but some will be wondering what ‘HS’ stands for. Congratulations those who said high sensitivity. The CMOS in this camera gives great low light shooting and also allows a rather good continuous shooting mode. Super slow motion means up to 240FPS (ten times what your TV shows normally). While the continuous shooting mode is only at ¼ of maximum resolution you do get close to 9FPS.

One novel feature is a wink detector that takes an image (when in self timer mode) two seconds after a wink is detected. So no need to rush to position yourself in a group image as you would need two when you only have the 10second option.

Another thing worth considering are Best Image Selection where five shots are taken very quickly and the best is saved.

Doing my Internet searches found the Canon Ixus 1000HS at a best price of £255.60 if you want pink, silver is £4 dearer while the brown/gold I was sent is £14 dearer.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00400OK70?ie=UTF8&tag=gadge0a-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634

I found the Canon Ixus 1000HS available for $299 including free delivery from Amazon on the following link:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003ZSHNF4?ie=UTF8&tag=gadge0a5-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789

I found the Canon Ixus 1000HS available for €277,34 including free delivery from Amazon on the following link:

http://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B00401ZDRU?ie=UTF8&tag=gadge04-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1642

http://www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/Digital_Camera/IXUS/IXUS_1000_HS/