Questions for 330 HS owners

OK, since I'm a 330 HS owner I'll say this:

1)  Auto ISO is worthless.  There's no rhyme or reason why it does what it does.  Choose your own ISO.

2)  i-Contrast works.  It's like Nikon ADL and I use that.

Keep the comments coming!

OK, I will

The 330 HS keeps the color true all the way to ISO 6400 which is amazing.  Yeah, there's noise but at least you can get a shot at 6400 if you have to.

Sharp lens, too.

I found auto does quite well. It is a pretty good low light shooter which is impressive for such a cheap camera. Sharp, colourful and detailed too. Why don't you show some of your shots?

Back in 2013/14 it one first place in the Aussie choice magazine for IQ and overall when they compared about 40 point and shoot cameras, some were up to $400. Its a little gem.

Cheers

Steve.

I shoot a lot downtown for my work, this was the first time I'd taken a point and shoot and just purposely took snapshots.  It was cool early morning light, deep shadows, light bouncing off tall buildings.  What you'll see here is 16 out of more than 200 I took (all on the very first charge of that unused Lenmar battery I found).

Please look at the "Original Size" for best versions.

I shot on Auto ISO for awhile till I figured I'd just as soon choose the ISO my own self.  The 330, on P, chose to shoot at some pretty low shutter speeds but its image stabilization did a pretty darn good job of keeping things sharp, like the alley image above.

All of these images I ran through Lightroom, toning down highlights and bringing up shadows, just like I do with every worthy shot I take with any of my cameras.

I shot a lot around our new Amtrak rail station, called Union Station.  A five year project that is pretty photogenic from a lot of different angles.  Inside the covered tunnel that goes under these tracks, to inside the Station itself to this structure.

I don't know, maybe all modern Canons take great shots but I'm very impressed with what the 330 can capture.  I don't apply the same "but is it croppable?" standards I do with my higher resolution/expensive lens DSLRs.  I did crop just a bit on some of these but not much.

I've been going up to the top of a parking garage and taking pics of this project, with a ton of cameras and different lenses, since before it was dirt.  From the looks of all the cranes it's not done yet!  The above is at 24mm.

This next one is zoomed in to maybe 5x:

A lot of removable zooms for DSLRs don't hold up so well at full zoom.  What's surprising about the 330 is how sharp it is even fully zoomed in:

And here:

Reflected light shows up in some pretty cool areas, like the shafts that lit up these planters:

Full on macro:

No processing to show what the 330 can do on its own at higher ISOs.

The thing to notice is how true the colors stay all the way to 6400.  There's always a balance between a low shutter speed/lower ISO vs higher ISO/higher shutter speed.  Yeah, the 330 does do its own noise reduction in-camera (read:  smearing of details) but without peeping too much and just applauding what it can do, it's all good.

damian5000 wrote:

1600 is not too bad, but this scene is fairly well lit. 6400 is understandably a mess. In low light it would be much worse. Sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but 1/2.3" sensors are not for mediocre or low light and several people on the forum portray them as such, which is sad, as often people are coming here for buying advice. The 1"-type is really the minimum required, unless shooting static scenes on a tripod.

If you cant afford a 1" then this is a good alternative. Remember this is straight out of camera no PP so it does well. If I want to buy a decent 1" in Australia you may pay upwards of $800 + this camera I got new for around $160. I get decent shots at ISO1600 which is all I want, small enough to sit in the jeans pocket etc.

Cheers

Steve.

Great shots, colors are vibrant and sharp. Its a little bargain camera.

Cheers

Steve.

damian5000 wrote:

Yea, if you've only got $150. Okay, what else are you going to do... But that doesn't make it a good option for low light / indoor shooting. It's just not. Of course you can live with it if you've got no other choice.

That sounds a little harsh. It does okay for low light up to ISO 1600, some of us cant afford to spend $400 + on a camera. A choice reviewed about 40 point and shoots and it got first place in image quality and first place overall, cameras were from $100 to up to $400. I wouldn't say its better than a $400 camera.

I compared it to a Nikon ($289) worth considerably more than the little canon and the canon was better in low light, the Nikon lost color at ISO1600 and was noisy wheras the canon maintained reasonable color and had less noise and more detail.

Its good if you have a limited budget and if you don't want to lug a large camera around. Even a friend of mine who has a dslr was quite impressed with the image quality.

Cheers

Steve.

damian5000 wrote:

1600 is not too bad, but this scene is fairly well lit. 6400 is understandably a mess. In low light it would be much worse. Sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but 1/2.3" sensors are not for mediocre or low light and several people on the forum portray them as such, which is sad, as often people are coming here for buying advice. The 1"-type is really the minimum required, unless shooting static scenes on a tripod.

I've shot a lot of DSLRs in that scene, looking at noise levels.  The criteria there is the lowest possible noise at an acceptably high enough shutter speed to shoot handheld, with post processing to clean up the noise with not much loss of detail.  I normally shoot at ISO 100 on a tripod.

Here, with the 330, the sole criteria was "will this little camera even shoot at higher ISOs" not how much noise it generated at any ISO.  There was a time, not that long ago, when sensors of this size wouldn't even shoot above ISO 1600.

I don't think anyone on this forum is delusional enough to think small sensor cameras (even the 1" sensors" are DSLR substitutes.  But at least now I know that if the only camera I have with me is the 330 (doubtful as I don't really stroll around taking snapshots) I know it can actually take a shot at 6400.

I found a link to a review they say excellent IQ for the price: http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/canon_ixus_255_hs_review/conclusion/

To bad they messed it up in the next model (265), more megapixels etc for a small sensor.

Cheers

Steve.

stevenic wrote:

I found a link to a review they say excellent IQ for the price: http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/canon_ixus_255_hs_review/conclusion/

To bad they messed it up in the next model (265), more megapixels etc for a small sensor.

Cheers

Steve.

Another: http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/digital-cameras/52529/canon-ixus-255-hs-review/page/0/1

Oh yeah, forgot to mention. It's a real easy camera to shoot with, captures focus quickly, zooms quick enough, menu diving isn't bad once you know where the things you choose most are located, write to card times are fast enough. I use a finger nail to activate the buttons on the back.

IOW, after me walking around town for two hours shooting the heck out of it, I had no complaints about any way it performed. That's not a given! Too bad Canon can't find another closet full of them to sell to us during Black Friday.

There is only one persistent flaw in this otherwise amazing little camera...after two trips to the Canadian version of a repair facility, the display still occasionally tells me that the battery is spent and needs recharging/replacing.  Nonsense, but I have to remove the battery, shove it back into its slot, and then close the cover.  From there, it works just fine.

gloaming wrote:

There is only one persistent flaw in this otherwise amazing little camera...after two trips to the Canadian version of a repair facility, the display still occasionally tells me that the battery is spent and needs recharging/replacing. Nonsense, but I have to remove the battery, shove it back into its slot, and then close the cover. From there, it works just fine.

I read about that.  One solution is to wad up some paper under the battery door so that it pushes the battery more firmly down into the slot.  I'm waiting for mine to do that so I can try it.

Hi,

I had to send mine in repair about a month after I got it, it became unusable. Because it was a known fault and under warranty they fixed it and I received it back 3 weeks later. Has been pretty fine since just a couple time it said flat battery, switched it off and back on again and it was fine after that.

Cheers

Steve.