I mentioned a digital camera in a previous post; the ancient Canon Digital ELPH S100 I had been using for years (no, really: years) was retired to ebay when I moved to Japan. So I found a Digital IXY 10 at a local electronics shop (Best でんき, if you must know 😉 ) and splurged.

It’s been a very long time since I had a new digital camera (or any “new” electronics, really), and I’m very happy with this one. Luckily my hiragana was strong enough to decipher the Japanese settings menu, and I managed to switch it over to English in the first minute or so (I’ll switch it back when my kanji includes the characters for “Automatic focus and red eye reduction” 🙄 ).

But I have to admit that I really like it. 7.1 megapixels, 3x zoom. I get nice, sharp pictures out of it, and there are onboard slide show and movie options too. I notice that I get something like 200+ photos on a 512Mb SD card at the highest resolution and lowest compression, and that’s far more than I ever expect to take without dumping the card.

The viewpanel is 2.5 inches (I think, I’m eyeballing it there), and the picture there is likewise sharp and clear. I also like the radial dial for navigating the menus. The S100’s old left-right controls were counterintuitive for things like the panel zoom or moving through pictures.

So in all, I’m a fan. The only downside? I believe it’s a Japan-only model. So don’t go asking your local Target employee for the Canon Digital IXY 10. 😀