Canon ELPH, IXUS or IXY? One Camera, Three Names

If you have been searching for a Canon IXY and keep landing on listings called ELPH or IXUS, you are not looking at three different cameras. Canon sold the same compact under three names depending on where it was sold: PowerShot ELPH in the Americas, IXUS in Europe, Asia and Oceania, and IXY in Japan. The body, sensor, lens and battery are identical. Only the badge changes.

The confusing part is that the model numbers do not line up either. Canon did not simply swap the family name — each region got its own numbering. So the name on a listing tells you where the camera was first sold, and almost nothing about which camera it actually is.

Why Canon Used Three Names

The names are older than digital photography. Canon launched ELPH, IXUS and IXY as APS film compacts in the 1990s, and the regional branding carried straight over when the line went digital. Early digital models wore Digital ELPH, Digital IXUS and IXY Digital; later generations quietly dropped the word Digital. A Japanese-market camera and a European one came off the same production line. The difference is the printing on the front.

The Same Camera, Decoded

Three examples show that there is no formula for translating one name into another.

The PowerShot SD1000 is the Digital IXUS 70 in Europe and the IXY Digital 10 in Japan. It is a 7.1-megapixel CCD compact from 2007 with a metal body and a 3x zoom.

The PowerShot ELPH 100 HS is the IXUS 115 HS in Europe and the IXY 210F in Japan. It is a 12.1-megapixel backside-illuminated CMOS compact from 2011, with a 4x zoom starting at 28mm and full HD video.

The IXY Digital 510 IS — one of the most searched cameras on our own site — is the PowerShot SD960 IS in the Americas and the Digital IXUS 110 IS in Europe: a 12.1-megapixel CCD model with a 28mm-wide 4x zoom.

So 10 becomes 70 becomes SD1000, and 210F becomes 115 HS becomes 100 HS. If you want to know what a listing really is, search the name you have together with the word IXUS or ELPH, and the equivalents surface immediately.

The Suffix Is the Part Worth Reading

The numbers are arbitrary. The letters after them are not, and they tell you something important about the sensor inside.

HS stands for Canon's HS System, its label for a backside-illuminated CMOS sensor paired with a faster processor. Any ELPH, IXUS or IXY with HS in the name belongs to the CMOS generation, roughly 2010 onwards, with cleaner low-light results and usually full HD video.

IS means optical image stabilisation and nothing more. It says nothing about the sensor — the SD960 IS, for example, is a CCD camera. A name carrying neither suffix, like the SD1000, belongs to the earlier CCD years and has no optical stabiliser.

That matters for the look most people are buying these cameras for. If you want the CCD rendering — denser colour, noise that breaks up like grain — look for names without HS. If you want a pocket camera that copes indoors without flash, look for HS.

What This Means When You Buy

Because the regional versions are the same camera, batteries and chargers are shared between them: an IXUS battery fits the matching ELPH. Reviews, manuals and spare parts can be found under any of the three names, which helps with older models where one regional name got most of the coverage.

Do not pay extra for one badge over another. A camera labelled IXY is not rarer or better than the identical IXUS; it simply started life in a different country. Judge the camera on its condition, never on the name printed on the front.

The checks are the same across the whole family. Extend and retract the lens several times and watch for a Lens Error message — these slim bodies leave very little room inside the barrel, so grit from a pocket does real damage. Check the screen for pressure marks, fire the flash several times in a row, and ask to see the camera powered on for more than a single shot, because original batteries from this era often hold very little charge.

At the time of writing, Silver Cam has both the PowerShot SD1000 and the ELPH 100 HS in stock, each tested for lens travel, flash recharge, screen condition and battery health. We do not have an IXY 510 IS right now. If that is the camera you were searching for, the ELPH 100 HS is the closest match we carry: the same 12.1-megapixel resolution and the same 28mm-wide 4x zoom, on a CMOS sensor instead of CCD. We also buy ELPH, IXUS and IXY cameras you no longer use, and repair the stuck lenses this family is prone to.