Timing & Performance

Like all of Canon' recent compacts the TX1's performance rarely disappoints; it feels fast and snappy in normal use and rarely keeps you waiting - nor does it 'get in the way' of getting the shot too often. In an ideal world we'd like to see the focus at the long end of the zoom improved (and focusing in low light in general speeded up), but our biggest complaint is about flash recycling, which stretches from around 3.5 to over 9 seconds (or even longer if you're shooting with flash repeatedly at long distances).

Timing Notes

All times calculated as an average of three operations. Unless otherwise stated all timings were made on a 3072 x 2304 Fine JPEG image (approx. 4,000 KB per image). The media used for these tests was a 1.0 GB Sandisk Extreme III card.

Action	Details	Time, secs
Power: Off to Record		1.8
Power: Off to Play	Image displayed	1.0
Power: Record to Off	All activity ceased	2.2
Power: Play to Off	When buffer is empty, lens retracted	~0.3
Power: Play to Off	When buffer is empty, lens extended	~1.8
Record Review	Image displayed	~0.7
Mode: Play to Record		2.1
Play: Magnify	To full magnification (10x)	1.1
Play: Image to Image	Time to display each saved image	0.5
Play: Thumbnail view	3 x 3 thumbnails	0.5
Zoom from Wide to Tele	39 to 390 mm (10 x) - high speed	1.3
Zoom from Wide to Tele	39 to 390 mm (10 x) - low speed	3.4
Half-press Lag (Focus time)	Wide angle, center focus *1	~0.4 - 0.7*2
Half-press Lag (Focus time)	Telephoto, AiAF	~0.7 - 0.9*3
Pre-focus Lag (S1>S2)	LCD live view	~0.06
Full-press Lag (0->S2)	LCD live view, wide angle	~0.6
Off to Shot Taken	LCD live view	~2.8
Shot to Shot	Flash off	~ 1.6
Shot to Shot	Flash on ( red eye reduction off)	3.5 - 8.7
Shot to Shot	Flash on ( red eye reduction on)	6.5 - 9.5

Continuous drive mode

The TX1 has two continuous shooting modes (Continuous and Continuous AF) - the only difference is that in Continuous-AF mode (as the name suggests) the camera refocuses between shots, which slows the rate down from around 1.7 fps to around 1.0 fps.

In both cases - provided you have reasonably fast media - you can shoot away to your heart's content until the card is full.

File writing / playback performance

The TX1 takes around 0.7 seconds to save a 3.5MB 7MP/Super Fine JPEG, which isn't bad at all - and the camera's fast buffering means you're never left waiting anyway. Playback isn't bad either, at around half a second per frame.

Battery life

The TX1 is plagued by the same problem as all ultra compacts without an optical viewfinder; the small battery means that the number of shots per charge (160 using the CIPA standard test) lags far behind the best cameras in this class. You can buy a genuine Canon spare for around $45 or a generic version for well under $10 (and get slightly higher capacity to boot).