I have never been a big fan of the Canon Ixus range . Most of the Ixuses over the years have been style cameras that look & feel great but take pictures that are ok only when the cameras themselves cost so much more than most of the competition . The Ixus 950 which came out in 2007 did change my oppinion a little - it took incredbly sharp pictures - but it was still far too expensive to justify buying it in my oppinion . Now Canon have introduced the Ixus 980 - a stupidly expensive camera ( for a compact ) - but my god does it take incredibly sharp pictures ! .

The Ixus 980 has a huge range of specifications . Massive 14.7 million pixels . Superb quality 36-133 3.7x optical zoom lens . 2.5 inch screen for picture taking & viewing . Small but useable optical viewfinder ( not TTL ) . Rechargeable Lithium battery ( it comes with the battery & charger ) . ISO range from 80 to 1600 . Face detection . Anti shake . Various light metering modes . Various scene modes . Auto flash with overides & flash exposure compensation . 1.3 frames per second fast / continuous shooting mode . Various auto focus modes . Various colour modes including Vivid for bright colours - black & white - neutral colours . Exposure compensation . Different pixel settings . Different compression settings . Self timer . Takes SD memory cards ( comes with a tiny 32 megabyte card ) . 5cm macro close up mode . Video clip mode with sound . The list of features is huge for a compact camera .

So far so good - but now the only real bad bit about the Ixus 980 ... its so incredibly fidly to use . The camera is not tiny but is small . It looks fantastic - one of the most stylish compact cameras ever made with curved lises all over ... but ... there is no where to hold it ! . The buttons on the back fill the back so you have to hold the camera top / bottom - this is not easy & not comfortable & there is a big danger of pressing one of the buttons by mistake & so change the settings . The zoom ring is infront of the shutter button - thats fine except for the fact that the ring is very small & not easy to use . The on / off button on the top is tiny & you need to use a finger nail to turn the camera on / off . Ok - so it is very fidly to use but the on screen menus are very easy & fast to use . The Ixus 980 is very fast at taking pictures if you can get used to holding it without touching the buttons on the back . It is superbly made - the all metal body is pure quality . The 2.5 inch screen is razor sharp even in sunlight . The optical viewfinder is very small but can be used just about . I got just over 260 pictures from the battery - it then took just over 1.5 hours to fully charge again .

Now lets talk about picture quality ... wowwwwwwwwwwwwwww !!!!!! ... its the best i have seen by miles from any compact camera . Every small detail can be seen . There is hardly any noise from the image sensor even though its 14.7 million pixels . In sunlight the pictures are a rival to even top end digital SLRs . Indoors i was able to take razor sharp images up to around 14 feet away - even at 20 feet they were very good . Crop in on a picture to see just how sharp it is - you would be amazed at how good the images are from this little camera .

If you want a compact camera that takes the sharpest pictures you can get from any compact digital camera then the Ixus 980 is for you ... but if you want a camera that takes top quality pictures but is also easy to use & fits well in your hand then i would sugest you look at the Hyundai L-8427 , Rollei 8427 , or the Pentax M-60 ... the Ixus 980 is not for you because it is just so fidly to use . Having said that ... i now have one for a general home use camera - i find it very anoying to use & i have to take care not to touch the buttons on the back - but when i look at the pictures & how sharp they are it makes it worth the hastle for me - i think most people would think otherwise & spend a lot less getting something better for them .

To view a picture taken with this camera please click on one of the pictures below . The pictures that are not of the camera itself are taken with this camera & have been downsized to fit on this web site using Microsoft Image Resizer ( http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx ) to give a smaller file size for this web site & a resolution of 576x768 or 1024x768 . When you click on the picture a larger version will come on to your screen - it is not a full sized image but will give you a good idea of how sharp & how well exposed the camera takes a picture . If you would like to see a full sized picture taken with this camera then please click on the " Ask for more Information " link button to your left then ask for a full sized picture taken with this camera ( state the cameras full Make & Model name ) .