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The Canon Digital IXUS 70 is a wonderfully stylish ultra-compact which offers lightning-quick performance, outstanding low-light ability and a useful range of features. Value for money is also surprisingly good for what is usually an expensive brand. Its picture quality isn’t perfect, but it can produce good results under difficult circumstances. For social photography and holiday snaps it will not often disappoint.

The 7 megapixel images are noisy and slightly blurred at ISO 400, with ISO 800 and particularly 1600 being best avoided. With no optical image stabilisation system available, this limits the camera to good light photography only. ISO Auto Shift is a useful feature that’s sadly let down by the quality available at ISO 800, whilst beginners will love the Face Detection feature which provides well focused and exposed family pictures. So the Canon Digital IXUS 70 is obviously not going to satisfy everyone, as it doesn’t offer full manual control over aperture and shutter speeds and the image quality is not best in class, but if you want a stylish ultra-compact camera, the IXUS 70 is still well worth considering.

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Bottom line - like it’s brother (A560), I was very happy with the Canon PowerShot A570 IS. With 7-megapixels of resolution, a 4x image stabilized optical zoom lens, 2.5-inch LCD, great movie mode, awesome image quality, and loads of useful exposure modes, the A570 is sure to be a very popular model for 2007. At US$279 or less (4/2007), it’s only about $50 more than the A560, which we feel is well worth the added versatility of this new model. That said, the A570 will make an excellent choice for anyone who wants a capable, yet compact and affordable 7-meagpixel digicam. 

From the PowerShot A620 springs the Canon PowerShot A640 and A630, both of which retain the same body design and 4X optical zoom as the A620, but with the addition of a 2.5-inch LCD monitor and an increase in resolution: the A630 to 8 megapixels, and the A640, the focus of this review, to 10 megapixels. While the exterior shape of the A640 is roughly the same as the A620, this model sports a dark-gray metallic finish with a lighter gray grip, as well as a metallic lens barrel and lens trim — the latter being removable to accept a conversion lens adapter.

But with that anticipation comes a sense of responsibility. The 1D Mark III costs $4,000, not including the lens. You better take a good picture! But if you like a challenge, and have some time, the EOS 1D Mark III has everything you need to make great images. If you don’t get a great picture, it’s you. That’s not nice, but it’s true. The good news is, that $4,000 and the Mark III’s serious capabilities will draw you into learning more about it, and drive you to experiment until you make some great images worthy of its power. Okay, I may be projecting, because the 1D Mark III sure is drawing me.