SMART ONE: The ultra compact Canon Digital IXUS i7 uses Face Detection technology to enhance pictures of people.

Bangalore: How often do we take photos while on holiday, at weddings or other family events, only to discover later, that the most important persons in the group are slightly off-focus, or shrouded in shadow? Digital editing software can go only so far in neutralising such errors.

Skin tones

How much better if the camera were smart enough to know what's important for us in every photo — and then compensated for any human shortcomings — on either side of the camera! The latest ultra compact digital camera, to be offered in India by Japanese maker Canon, does just that. It uses a technology called ``Face detection'' that automatically locks on to a human face or as many as nine faces in the preview screen — and etches a temporary box around each face. It is clever enough to know what skin tones look like — so it automatically adjusts focus, exposure and timing to ensure that the faces are sharply registered. If the face or faces are in shadow, the flash kicks in, to brighten the features.

In a case of great minds thinking alike, camera makers Canon and Fuji have begun to offer face-finding technology with their cameras in recent months.

Tiny frame

The Canon Digital IXUS i7 Zoom that The Hindu was enabled to try out as soon as it came to India, puts this technology into an extremely tiny frame. The ultra compact camera that weighs just over 100 gm and fits snugly into the palm of one's hand, uses a proprietary Digic III imaging chip to perform the face detection functions. Spec-wise it is a 7.1 megapixel camera with 4x optical zoom. That means the pictures one shoots can be blown up really big — easily up to twice the size of the standard A4 paper one uses in computer printers.

Obviously made for the `rest of us' amateurs who can't be bothered with too many complicated controls, it has a number of presets optimised for shooting `kids and pets,' `fireworks,' `indoors,' `sports,' `beach' `night scene' etc.

In the movie mode it can shoot up to one hour of video (that will gobble up 4 GB of memory!) and you can project it in the popular `16 by 9' or wide screen format. Anticipating another common need, the print mode, makes it easy to print multiple identity or passport photos on a single sheet. And coming from Canon, it has PictBridge — the technology that allows one to connect by cable or wireless, directly to a photo printer, bypassing a PC.

Light in the pocket

You will get only five rupees change for Rs. 19,000 if you decide to buy the IXUS i7 — but for those not too light-in-purse this user-friendly camera will be decidedly light in the pocket.

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