The Canon IXUS 275 HS [also known as the PowerShot ELPH 350 HS] is an ultra-slim compact camera which features a 20.2 million pixel high-sensitivity CMOS sensor. That is accompanied by a 12x optical zoom, which gives you an equivalent of 25-300mm in 35mm terms. There's also two types of digital zoom available which boosts that reach to 24x and 48x. Intelligent IS [image stabilisation] is included to help keep blur to a minimum. The IXUS 275 HS has a Digic 4+ processor, and has a number of automatic and scene modes which you can shoot in. There's also Creative Shot, which creates five different images with digital filters and crops [along with a standard, clean image] applied from one press of the shutter release button. Wi-Fi is inbuilt, as is NFC, to allow you to remotely control the camera, or download images which you've already taken with it for quick sharing to social networks and the like. The Canon IXUS 275 HS is capable of recording full HD videos, while there's also Hybrid Auto which creates a montage video to accompany stills you have taken during a given day. The Canon IXUS 275 HS retail for £129 / $210.
Ease of Use
Canon has been using the same sort of design for its stylish and slim IXUS models for a while, so it's no surprise to see the same kind of appearance here in the IXUS 275 HS. It's certainly slim enough to fit into a jeans pocket, making it a good choice as a carry around camera, or something to slip into your bag on a night out.
The 12x optical zoom lens extends from the body of the Canon IXUS 275 HS when you switch it on, while it can be zoomed using a switch around the shutter release on the top of the camera. The switch itself, although small, feels pretty sturdy, and should be able to withstand repeated use. The zoom of the lens is quite smooth and fluid, and you can reach the end of the zoom range fairly quickly.
If you have digital zoom activated, the lens will pause for a moment before it enters into digital zoom territory, and again before it enters the second type of digital zoom - this is handy for ensuring you only stick with optical zoom if that's what you'd prefer to do.
On top of the Canon IXUS 275 HS, there's the on/off button, the shutter release and a switch for allowing you to choose between the three different shooting options which the camera offers.
The first option, is “Automatic”, but within this, you'll find that you can switch to a Program mode if you want to take greater control over your shots. You'll also be able to select different scene modes and so on here, too.
The second option is “Creative Shot”. This allows you to create six different filtered or cropped images all with one press of the shutter release button. You don't have a lot of control over which filters or crops will be applied, but you can choose from different “sets” of filters by pressing the Display button and selecting from options such as “Auto”, “Retro”, “Special” and “Monochrome”. It would be nice if you could choose for yourself some of these filters, but it is still quite fun to experiment with this mode.
Finally, the third option on the switch is Hybrid Auto. This mode is completely automatic and you won't be able to change any shooting settings when you're using it. A two-second video clip will be captured every time a picture is taken - video will start recording from the moment you half press the shutter to focus. At the end of the day, you can view a montage video which has been collated from the videos shot throughout the day, and you will also have each of the still images separately.
This is a really fun mode and works especially well for events and holidays - birthdays and weddings are a great time to use it. It would be nice though if you could have a little control over which clips make it into the final video - for instance if you take more than one photo of the same thing, the video can be pretty repetitive. It's fuss free though, and perhaps introducing the ability to edit this video would make it more complicated than it needs to be.
Moving to the back of the Canon IXUS 275 HS and you'll find the majority of the camera's buttons are grouped on the right hand side. This makes it easy to make changes to all of the settings when you're using the camera with just one hand.
Again, if you've ever used a Canon IXUS camera before, you should be perfectly at home with the button layout here, with the company not straying from its usual design for compact cameras.
The top two buttons are a playback button for viewing images and movies that you've already taken, and a dedicated video record button. This latter button is slightly recessed into the body of the camera, making it pretty unlikely that you'll accidentally push it and create videos you don't want.
Just underneath these two buttons you'll find a four way navigational pad, with a button in the middle. Each of the navigational keys has its own function. The up key activates Wi-Fi, or Auto Zoom. The left button controls Macro Shooting, the right button accesses flash functions, while the down button changes the different Display modes the camera offers.
A function button in the middle of this navigational pad gives you access to a quick menu for making rapid changes to certain settings, depending on the shooting mode you're in. If you're in the Hybrid Auto mode, the only options you'll find here will be timer and different video quality settings. However, if you're shooting in the standard automatic mode, you'll find a myriad of different options available here.
From within the quick menu you can change from fully automatic to Program mode, which then opens up the possibility to change other settings such as “My Colors”, white balance, ISO [sensitivity] and metering. This is good for those that want to take a little more control over shooting parameters, but note that it's not possible to set aperture or shutter speed in this way. If you select “Long Shutter” mode from within the function menu, you can set shutter speeds from 1 second up to 15 seconds, which is useful for photographing long exposures in dark conditions - but note that you'll need to use a tripod to keep the camera steady during such exposures - a tripod thread is found on the bottom of the camera.
The final two buttons on the back of the Canon IXUS 275 HS are a one-touch button for connecting the camera to your phone [once the initial setup has taken place] and the main menu button. Within the main menu, you'll find more in-depth options than from within the function menu, as well as other camera settings, such as setting the date and time.
You can't change autofocus point using the IXUS 275 HS. Your options are Face Detection, Tracking and Center point. It's recommended that for most situations you use the Center point and use the focus and recompose method if something you're photographing is not in the centre of the frame.
When you're in the Hybrid Auto mode, you can't choose macro focusing, but most of the time, the camera will recognise when it is photographing a close-up subject. If it doesn't, you can switch to macro focusing in the standard automatic setting and then select macro focusing by pressing the left directional key.
In good light, autofocusing speeds are pretty rapid, dropping a little when the light is lower - in lower light conditions you might find that the 175 hunts a little before snapping into focus. Occasionally when photographing something close up, it's possible that you'll be presented with a false confirmation of focus, which is something to keep an eye on.
Otherwise, general operational speeds of the Canon IXUS 275 HS are pretty good, and you can cycle through menus and images in playback with ease. The menus themselves are reasonably well thought out and designed, and it's not generally too difficult to find the setting you need to change quite quickly.
Image Quality
All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 16 megapixel SuperFine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 7Mb.
Directly from the Canon IXUS 275 HS, colours are bold and vibrant, and are basically typical of the warmth that Canon cameras are known for. If you want to alter the appearance of colours in your shot, you can do this via the MyColors setting, which is useful if you’re not getting quite the appearance you want - for instance, you might wish to boost the contrast of colours for flower shots, but keep them more neutral for general landscapes.
The overall impression of detail in shots taken with the Canon IXUS 275 HS is great when you’re viewing at normal printing or web sizes [such as A4 or below], but it’s possible to see image smoothing when you look closely at an image, even in low sensitivity shots, such as ISO 100.
Looking at images taken at higher sensitivities, such as ISO 1600, it’s possible to see some loss of detail even when you’re viewing at A4 type sizes - but that’s pretty much to be expected from cameras like this. However, if you’re only sharing on Facebook and the like, you should be fine - and it’s certainly better to have a little loss of detail rather than a blurry shot.
In the majority of cases, the IXUS 275 HS’s general-purpose metering system does an excellent job of accurately measuring the scene to produce accurate exposures. If you need to add or reduce the brightness a little, you can adjust exposure compensation in Program mode. Similarly, automatic white balance produces generally accurate colours even when faced with artificial light - if you find that it’s producing slightly too warm tones, again, you can alter the white balance setting in Program mode.
Images taken at the far reach of the telephoto optic display a good level of detail. Although there’s a significant loss of detail when using the first of the digital zooms, it’s not too bad when viewing at small sizes. The second digital zoom is recommended only if you desperately want to get closer to the subject.
Noise
The Canon IXUS 275 HS has six sensitivity settings at full resolution. Auto mode uses a range between ISO 100 and ISO 3200, or you can switch to the Program shooting mode to manually select these settings.
ISO 100 [100% Crop]
ISO 200 [100% Crop]
ISO 400 [100% Crop]
ISO 800 [100% Crop]
ISO 1600 [100% Crop]
ISO 3200 [100% Crop]
Sharpening
We found that the Canon IXUS 275 HS images are already pretty sharp, but do benefit from a little touch up in post processing.
Original [100% Crop]
Sharpened [100% Crop]
Focal Range
The Canon IXUS 275 HS' 12x zoom lens achieves a maximum wide-angle focal length equivalent to 25mm, and is capable of a telephoto reach of 300mm [in 35mm-camera terms].
25mm
300mm
Chromatic Aberrations
The Canon IXUS 275 HS handled chromatic aberrations fairly well during the review, with purple and green fringing present around the edges of objects in high-contrast situations, as shown in the examples below.
Chromatic Aberrations 1 [100% Crop]
Chromatic Aberrations 2 [100% Crop]
File Quality
Every image size option on the Canon IXUS 275 HS is accompanied by two quality settings: Fine and Super Fine. Going for the latter will up the file size of each image from 6MB to around 8MB.
SuperFine [8.22Mb] [100% Crop]
Fine [5.82Mb] [100% Crop]
Macro
The close focusing of the Canon IXUS 275 HS at wide-angle is a mere 1cm. It does mean that there's little light getting in when you do that and the edge definition drops off leaving around 50% of the image in focus.
Macro
Macro [100% Crop]
Flash
The Canon IXUS 275 HS' flash can only manage a relatively weak 4m range and hence there's some fairly obvious vignetting in our wide-angle test shot taken at a distance of 1.5m. The flash has four modes: Auto, On, Off and Slow Synchro, plus a separate setting to enable or disable red-eye reduction. Whether this is active or not, the camera successfully avoids any trace of red-eye.
Flash Off - Wide Angle [24mm]
Flash On - Wide Angle [24mm]
Flash Off - Telephoto [300mm]
Flash On - Telephoto [300mm]
And here are some portrait shots.
Flash On
Flash On [100% Crop]
Flash On
Flash On [100% Crop]
Night
The Canon IXUS 275 HS's maximum shutter speed is 15 seconds, which is great news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 15 seconds at ISO 80.
Night
Night [100% Crop]
Sample Images
This is a selection of sample images from the Canon IXUS 275 HS camera, which were all taken using the 20 megapixel SuperFine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.
Sample Movie & Video
This is a sample movie at the highest quality setting of 1920x1080 pixels at 30 frames per second. Please note that this 16 second movie is 62.6Mb in size.
Product Images
Front of the Canon IXUS 275 HS
Front of the Canon IXUS 275 HS / Turned On
Side of the Canon IXUS 275 HS
Side of the Canon IXUS 275 HS
Rear of the Canon IXUS 275 HS
Rear of the Canon IXUS 275 HS / Image Displayed
Rear of the Canon IXUS 275 HS / Turned On
Rear of the Canon IXUS 275 HS / Function Menu
Rear of the Canon IXUS 275 HS / Main Menu
Top of the Canon IXUS 275 HS
Bottom of the Canon IXUS 275 HS
Side of the Canon IXUS 275 HS
Side of the Canon IXUS 275 HS
Front of the Canon IXUS 275 HS
Front of the Canon IXUS 275 HS
Conclusion
Canon has been producing sleek and stylish IXUS cameras for some time now, and the IXUS 275 HS is no different.
If you’re looking for something to slip into your trouser pocket or bag, perhaps while you’re on holiday or during a party or night out, then the IXUS 275 HS is a fuss-free camera which delivers some nice results.
While there’s nothing hugely exciting about this model, it’s got a good range of features - although some of those, we’re starting to expect from every modern camera [such as inbuilt Wi-Fi]. The camera’s Wi-Fi works well though, and it’s nice to be able to control the camera remotely for selfies and the like.
Some of the creative options available are fun to experiment with - the Hybrid Auto mode is particularly fun when you’re photographing a party or something, but it would be nice to have a little more control here. Similarly, Creative Shot produces some great results, but again, it’s very random - arguably part of the fun of course, but a little frustrating at times.
Arguably there’s not much here to elevate the IXUS 275 HS above a very good smartphone, such as the iPhone 6, or the LG G4, however, you do have an optical zoom which makes it a bit more flexible when you’re on holiday. It also means that you don’t have to worry about your phone’s battery life keeping up with your holiday shooting, too. The fact that Canon has made it easy to transfer your images across to your phone helps with the desire to share your shots quickly too.
Overall, if you’re looking for something simple to use which delivers great results in a variety of conditions, you can do worse than the Canon IXUS 275 HS. It’s nice that there’s a little bit of control to be found in the Program mode, too.
Ratings [out of 5] Design 4 Features 4 Ease-of-use 4 Image quality 4 Value for money 4
Main Rivals
Listed below are some of the rivals of the Canon IXUS 275 HS.
The Nikon Coolpix S3700 is an affordable point-and-shoot compact camera with built-in wifi and NFC connectivity. Featuring an 8x, 25-200mm lens and a 20 megapixel CCD sensor, the S3700 also offers 720p HD movies and a range of special effects. Read our Nikon Coolpix S3700 review to find out if this budget shooter is worth looking at..
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ57 [also known as the ZS45] is a new travel-zoom compact camera with a 16-megapixel sensor, 180-degree tiltable monitor and a 20x zoom lens. Read our Panasonic DMC-TZ57 review to find out if this is the travel-zoom camera for you...
The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-WX500 is the world's smallest camera with a 30x zoom lens. This affordable travel-zoom also offers a flip-up screen, pop-up flash, 18 megapixel Exmor R CMOS sensor, 10fps continuous shooting, built-in wi-fi/NFC connectivity and Full HD movie recording. Read our Sony Cyber-shot DSC-WX500 review to find out if this is the best travel-zoom camera on the market...