I purchased my Elph2 camera approximately a year ago and have found it to be one of the more capable APS cameras on the market. Photography is a hobby of mine and I own two SLR bodies and have had experience in printing and developing many different kinds of film.
The main reason that I was swayed by the Elph2 was it's compact size and sturdy construction. There are many cameras on the market that are comparable in size to the Elph2 but they just don't match up when it comes to build quality.
My experience with the Elph2 was not quite as glorious as some of the other reviewers who have used this camera but this is just my personal experience with it. First I'll start off with what I love about the camera:
The size, this has got to be the best thing about the camera. It comes with a beautiful leather pouch which can be looped onto your belt and it does a marvelous job of protecting the camera. I had a few friends accidentally drop it and the camera just landed with a comforting soft thud. As opposed to my SLRs, if I accidentally put the Elph2 down too hard or just lightly tossed it into my backsack, I felt completely assured that when I would retrieve it for later use that there would be nothing wrong with the unit.
As for features, the Elph2 comes with pretty much everything you could ask for ! The zoom is rather limited but then Canon has come out with the Elph 370z which although a bit larger is also quite a nice camera. The replacement of the pop up flash from the original Elph to the fixed flash was a good change in my opinion as it does add to camera construction and the flash is a very very tiny distance further from the lens then the original unit. Placement of the flash unit being the main cause of red eye, this helps a bit but with the red eye reduction system in the camera, I rarely had any problems with red eye when developing and printing my prints.
As with most of the higher end APS cameras, the Elph2 allows you to put the date and gives you the option of adding some short messages to your pictures, such as I Love You, Happy Birthday etc... Small buttons, which make it a bit of a pain at times, and it's too bad the display doesn't actually tell you what title you are going to be putting on the print ( just a reference number ) but there are some things that you just have to give up when using a camera of this size. All in all, it's something that can be easily overlooked as they do enclose a small sticker that you can place on the camera with a references as to which title is associated with the alphanumeric label.
A nice thing about the Elph2 is that you can actually take advantage of the full zoom range. In many of the APS cameras I have tried out at work, although they claim to have a 24-48mm zoom, when using the zoom ring it only allows you to zoom to maybe three different positions within the 24-48mm focal range. This is not the case with the Elph2.
Just to briefly go over some of the other features that the Elph2 comes standard with, are mid-roll change, it can be used with a remote control, it has a timer on it for when you want to take pictures of yourself and friends, very very short lag between pushing the shutter release button ( which is terrific in my opinion for catching those special moments, instead of waiting for the camera to focus, then meter the situation, then release the shutter) The Elph2 accomplishes all of this in a split second so for people used to fast cameras, you will definitely be pleased with this setting on the Elph2. Professional photographers would be pleasantly suprised at the speed at which this little camera can fire off a shot.
Image quality... Well needless to say, you are just not going to get the same kind of image quality and sharpness that you would get with a fixed focal length lens. And APS films cannot reproduce the kind of quality that 35mm films can. But if you do not intend on enlarging many of your pictures, the benefits of APS truly do stand out, no more negatives kicking around, easy to load, store, index prints ( although at the photo counter at my store they also provide index prints for 35mm film at no charge ). There is also a Pentax Espio series camera in my household which where I too choose, I would use the Pentax as the lens quality seems to be a bit better then the Elph, but then it has none of the features like mid-roll change and cannot easily be put in your pocket. What I am trying to say here, is that if you are looking for razor sharp prints. You will get them SOMETIMES with this camera, but not always. For the most part though, it produces prints which are more then adequate for everyday general shooting.
Something that I would recommend to people who are looking for a higher end APS camera is that they actually purchase a roll of APS film and just go take advantage of the mid-roll change in many of the units out there and find out which ones produce the best results for you =) IMHO, this has got to be the a great way to compare cameras as with 35mm cameras, this method would be quite costly and tedious. But all in all, the Elph2 definitely does stand above most of the similar APS cameras in it's class. I hope that this review has helped and if you have any questions please leave a comment and I'll be happy to help you out if I can. I am learning more about the digital cameras but I would have to say that my forte at this moment is with 35mm film and cameras, with a good working knowledge of APS films and consumer cameras.
Tiny automatic Advanced Photo System camera with a 2x zoom lens APS features such as midroll change and 3 print formats Easy drop-in film loading Auto...More at Amazon Marketplace
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