Canon IXUS 900 Ti Review

The Canon IXUS 900 Ti is a ten megapixel digital camera with a 3x optical zoom lens. One of the main selling points that Canon are pushing is the fact that the body of the IXUS 900 Ti is made of titanium. Although this does not have any impact on the picture quality and as far as I am aware has no clear benefit if the camera is dropped it is likely to appeal to anyone who is especially style conscious.

I am sure the fact that the camera offers ten megapixels will also prove attractive to many potential buyers.



Image Quality
There were no surprises with the test photos I took with the IXUS 900 Ti. Focusing was sharp, colours strong and the photos had a vibrant, bright look to them. In terms of picture quality this camera is comfortably above average.

Starting off with the outdoor scenic shots these highlight the colours and also the sharpness the camera is capable of. A good guide to the focusing capabilities of the camera is the clarity of the bricks in the building in the first test shot. On the whole focusing also stays sharp up to the edge of each photo as well. I like the colour of the skies and also the foliage in these photos. This suggests that you should be able to produce your own well balanced landscape shots.

One area I have noticed where the IXUS 900 Ti has struggled is with the reflection of the sun from white areas in the outdoor shots. This is especially noticeable on the beams under the roof of the building in the first test shot and there is also a fair amount of reflection from the boats themselves. A lot of this problem is down to the time of the year the test shots were taken with the sun getting lower in the sky. The majority of cameras I have tested recently have found this problem impossible to overcome.

Good levels of detail are shown up in the darker areas of the photos, although the second outdoor shot is a little darker around the edges than I would like to see. The third outdoor shot again highlights how well the camera is capable of focusing.

The two portrait shots are my favourite pictures from the IXUS 900 Ti. I especially like the colours in the two photos. They have a very natural look and the skin tones are more or less spot on. Lighting conditions for both photos were not perfect so I am very happy with the final results. The indoor portrait is another to underline how well the camera is able to focus even when the lighting is less than perfect. The downside is some red eye showing in the shot.

My other indoor/lowlight shot is of some beer bottles. This photo is taken in more or less complete darkness. Again it is impressive how well the IXUS 900 Ti is able to hold the focus as you move away from the centre of the shot. This is another above average effort. Combined with the indoor portrait it appears that this camera is likely to be one of the best performing consumer level digital cameras in lowlight.

The dedicated test for colour supports the findings throughout all the test shots. Colours are strong without being overbearing. Blues in particular show up well and this should help with skies in landscape type shots.

For close up photography it is hard to find better cameras in this price range than these Canon IXUS models. The 900 Ti produces a very clear shot with plenty of detail.

Shots that do not work quite so well are the higher ISO shots. Although the one taken using ISO 400 is more than acceptable when compared against many rival cameras there are clear levels of deterioration in the ISO 1600 shot and I would suggest only using this setting when there is no other way of getting your picture.

Having just reviewed the Canon IXUS 850 IS I can see virtually no difference between the photos taken with that cameras and the IXUS 900 Ti. There is no real surprise in that outcome. Therefore if you are trying to decide which one of these two cameras to buy it is a case of looking at the features. For example the IXUS 850 offers a wide angle lens and images stabilisation while the IXUS 900 Ti has more megapixels and a titanium body.