Reviewed by Randy Shafer (Heavysteam@aol.com)

Canon's little Elph IXUS broke new ground in camera design.    Described as "the camera you can wear" it became a fashion statement as well as a quality introduction to the Advanced Photo System.

The Elph's popularity spawned more pocket APS releases from Canon -- The Elph Jr., Elph Lite and Elph 370z.  I use a pair Elph IXUS cameras to shoot stereo pairs.  My camera dealer was pleased enough with my work to ask for enlargements to show in the store, and he offered me a pair of 370z's at store cost to get me using the new version of the Elph.  Imagine his surprise a week later when I returned the cameras for a refund.

I won't get into discussing the specifications of this new camera too much except to say that it is basically an extension of the Elph IXUS -- very similar in construction but fractionally larger.  The zoom is a 3:1 design rather than the original 2:1 design of the IXUS.

I shot a pair of test rolls with two cameras mounted together on a base.  The resulting prints can be viewed in stereo on my print viewer.  I tend to use the widest focal lengths when shooting, and I got an unpleasant surprise when my prints came back from Kodak Premium -- The corners of the photos show serious darkening of the image when the camera lens is set at the widest
focal length.  While this may not phase a newbie, it is very noticeable to a guy who spends a lot of time with professional equipment like medium format and view cameras.

I checked the both sets of prints and confirmed the problem appeared with both cameras.   I then checked the negatives and the problem appeared in the negatives, so that ruled out the printing machine.  I then noticed that the darkening only appeared in pictures shot at the wider focal lengths.  I contacted Canon and the technical person actually said he wasn't aware of the problem!!  The darkening was at least two stops--  that's a lot.   On one of my large format cameras with a super wide angle lens I can solve the problem by adding a center filter, but I don't have that option, and two stops of darkening is just too much to keep the Elph 370z in the "quality product" corner.

Suffice it to say that the cameras went back and my trusty IXUS Elphs were returned to the throne.  I'm sorry to say to Canon that I consider the optics on this camera to be seriously compromised and I can't recommend it -- the optical performance is simply not commensurate with a $300+ camera.

On the other hand, I can heartily recommend the original Elph IXUS -- a yeoman of APS cameras, light in the pocket and heavy in quality.  I've taken more good "snapshots" with this camera than any other camera I've used in forty years of photography, and the recently falling prices make it an even better deal.