Stylish, precious scrap: Canon Ixus 70

David Lee

25.8.2020

Translation: machine translated

The Canon Ixus 70 cost me one franc in theory and zero in practice, fits in a packet of cigarettes and is simply beautiful. At some point I also found out what it was good for.

Old compact cameras are out. Nobody wants them. You can get them on Ricardo, Tutti or eBay for a ridiculous price. That's how I bought my Canon Ixus 70 at auction for one franc and ended up getting it for free. I didn't have a franc with me when I picked it up and the nice woman didn't want to accept a five-franc coin. Even though the camera was in perfect condition. She couldn't change it either.

Because I can have these "youngtimers" just like that, I run the risk of acquiring a large collection. I have to be careful, because I don't really want that. I like the little snapshots, but I don't need them. I'm a bit like Thomas Meyer. In theory, I'm in favour of a simple life without many possessions. In practice, I have reverse gear acquisition syndrome (GAS): Instead of always buying the latest hot shit, I get myself more old bits and bobs.

But why?

Why have I just snapped up the Ixus 70? Because it's beautiful and I want it. But since I prefer to think of myself as a rational being rather than an instinct-driven one, I put forward the following rationalisation:

Old cameras produce images with a unique look and feel. I noticed this with the PowerShot A50. "The style of the images is almost iconic," said Thomas Kunz approvingly. But the A50 is so slow and impractical that it physically hurts. I want something that is old enough for iconic images, but new enough to be easy to use.

The camera is from 2007, has 7.1 megapixels and a triple zoom. The screen is quite large at 2.5 inches and the camera is the size of a credit card. If the quality of the photos above seems a little poor to you, it's probably because I took them with the PowerShot A50 from 1999.

Debugging: Forget the bug, David

So, chop-chop, iconic images here we go! Patience is not my strong point. It has to be done quickly and with little effort. But I've already photographed my keyboard and myself with the Nikon Coopix L3. And you've probably started to see my landscape pictures of the Greifensee shore. I need new ideas.

A ladybird is a guest in my kitchen. A reverse ladybird: not red with black dots, but black with red dots. The ideal victim. In macro mode on the Ixus 70, I can get as close as 4 cm. That should be enough.

However, the autofocus is pretty sluggish and the beetle has decided to run a marathon at this moment. It runs amazingly fast. I can't get him in focus.

Perhaps the exposure time is just too long. I'll turn up the ISO.

But instead of reducing the shutter speed, the camera closes the aperture. Thanks a lot too! Maybe it works with the flash?

No

The beetle senses that I am stalking it. It feels observed, followed. Ladybirds are sensitive creatures. They bring luck, and luck is fleeting. I have to lock up the fugitive. I don't let the beetle out until I have a good picture.

The beetle races through the kitchen at a greatly exaggerated speed. Now on the window pane. Backlight situation. Not good. The camera can even create something like bokeh, not bad. But not what I want. Then back at the top of the window frame. Not ideal either.

What is it now? The beetle has disappeared! Oh right, it's on the camera. Now it finally stops. But I can't get a nice picture with my mobile either.

I give up. Maybe inverted ladybirds bring inverted luck, i.e. bad luck.

Hacking the raw format

I liked the colours of the Canon PowerShot A50. But only in RAW, not JPEG. The Canon Ixus 70 doesn't offer RAW, like many cameras of the time. With the Canon Hack Development Kit (CHDK) I can still access the raw format - and DNG. Lightroom can't read the raw format because it doesn't officially exist. DNG, on the other hand, is a uniform standard.

However, the function is of little use to me. The images are also OK as JPEG, sometimes even better. The internal image processor really seems to get the best out of the raw data. In addition, this raw data is quite limited compared to a modern camera, which is why I can't take the RAW in every desired direction.

The CHDK is practical in that it shows me the battery level. The normal camera software doesn't do that. Instead, I could record my own shutter sound. Canon has prioritised the features in a rather strange way.

Black and white is best

One of the fun features is that I can choose between many colour settings: neutral, strong, slide film, sepia, black and white, strong green, red or blue, light or dark skin tone - and a custom colour setting. I think it's cool in theory, but I can't do anything with it in practice. The differences are small and sometimes undesirable: strong green does not lead to brighter landscapes, but rather to yellow things also turning green.

I have a similar experience with the colour pipette, another gimmick of the Ixus 70. It picks one colour and only displays this, everything else is displayed in black and white. This is called a colour key. It doesn't work for me because the tolerance is too low: similar but not exactly the same colours fall through and are displayed in dull grey.

I am very impressed by the black and white function. Of course, I could also create the black and white on the PC afterwards and would have even more options for monochrome design. But if the viewfinder image is already monochrome, I can recognise much better what is suitable for a black and white image.

Old compact cameras tend to produce too harsh contrasts due to their poor dynamic range. In black and white photography, however, this can be used as an excellent stylistic device. My favourite in this area is photographer Fred Mortagne aka French Fred.

Here are my first attempts at producing something French Fred-like:

Goal achieved

I wanted an old camera to take me to a new style. After a few wrong turns, I finally succeeded. Black and white with hard contrasts is the vocation of the Canon Ixus 70, and that's what it does best. And coincidentally, it's something I've wanted to try out for a long time. <p

David Lee

Senior Editor

David.Lee@digitecgalaxus.ch

My interest in IT and writing landed me in tech journalism early on (2000). I want to know how we can use technology without being used. Outside of the office, I’m a keen musician who makes up for lacking talent with excessive enthusiasm.

These articles might also interest you