EthanU's Full Review: Canon Elph Jr. APS Film Camera
Although I had never before owned a Canon, I knew of their reputation as one of the top manufacturers of photo equipment. I’ve been intrigued by the APS cameras since their inception a few years ago, and I bought a Fujifilm brand APS camera that was so horrible that I returned it to the store after just one roll of film. I shied away from APS until I saw the ELPH Jr. in a store. It is so tiny! (3.5” x 2.5” x 0.9”) I was going on a trip and wanted something I could carry everywhere. Professional photographers and serious amateurs seem to have a lot of negative things to say about the APS format, but they can’t deny the genius of the design of the IX 240 cartridge. You can’t make 35mm cameras as small as APS allows! Are there any other advantages to this camera? Yes, there are: 1/800 shutter speed and f/2.8 lens are nice too. The prints are usually pretty sharp. None are spectacular, but acceptably decent as a record of the event. I usually get a few in a roll of 25 that are out of focus. Whether the result of carelessness or the inadequacy of the autofocus, the result is a few disappointments. But they are photographs that I might not otherwise have at all. This camera is not equipped with a zoom lens (it has a fixed 26mm), which is not a problem for me. I use it for snapshots, usually of people in restaurants or at parties or other social occasions where a zoom would be useless.
When I got married last weekend, I was able to carry it with me for the entire day. One of our guests made the comment that I was the only groom they ever saw with a camera. I was able to slip it into my jacket pocket without any unsightly bulges. (Well, maybe a couple around my waist, but that’s my fault.) Besides being small, it’s a stylish little camera. It didn’t look out of place in the presence of formal wear!
Some other nice features are the standard APS stuff: date imprinting, format selection with viewfinder cropping, etc. There are some titles you can choose from, but I’ve never used them. They are available in several languages, in case you want to print “I Love You” in Japanese on the back of your photos. There are the standard flash mode selections, including on, off, auto, red-eye reduction and “night mode”, which allows for a flash followed by a long exposure of up to 2 seconds. Notably absent is an infinity focus mode, which would be useful for photographs taken through windows. That’s one feature I’d really like.
Another neat feature is the available wireless infrared remote control. I bought one (about $20) just for fun. There is a 2 second delay between triggering and shutter release. I guess that’s to give you time to hide the remote. It also flashes the red eye reduction lamp to let you know your photograph is being taken. I wish there were a way to turn it off for candid remote snapshots. I guess you could put electrical tape over the flash and set the flash mode to off. It’s also got a 10-second self timer that you can trigger with the shutter release button on the camera.
The camera seems to be well-built, and has a nice heft to it. (I’m not sure why that lends a feeling of quality, but it does.) The controls are more or less intuitive, and the manual is pretty good, and written in six languages.
Battery life seems to be adequate. I've only shot about 15-20 rolls with this camera, and the battery is still going strong.
Seventy-five percent of my affection for this camera is due to its unobtrusive size and convenience. The other twenty-five percent is chalked up to Canon quality.
I like this camera so much that I bought a second one to replace my lost/stolen original. I paid $99 for mine, but you can find it for about $80 at the time of this writing.
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