Famous for their various types of digital video cameras, the Canon Company has come up a series of ultra-compact digital cameras styled the Canon ixus in Europe and South East Asia. In United States and Canada, the product is known as PowerShot Digital ElPH. The model has large similarities with the once popular Canon IXUS/IXY/ELPH line of advanced photo system film cameras. 

When in March 1999, Canon came up with the PowerShot S10 model, it was considered to be one of the best digital cameras of the time. It found place regularly in the Digital Camera Reviews. Its popularity could be attributed to the fact that the camera was digital and at the same time compact and qualitative. The improvement was digital ixus that blends Canon’s award wining IXUS design with the PowerShot digital technology. 

When people learned from the Gadget News about the appearance of the first IXY Digital in June 2000, they jumped at it. This model blended Canon’s standard digital technology to the IXY 320 APS camera. 

The new camera was in reality the predecessor of one of the most popular Canon models, the S3, the latest being the Canon PowerShot S3 Digital Camera that came to market recently. The S3 made its first appearance in the market in 2003-04. These were the thinner models with compact flash technology. In reality, they were Canon’s response to the Casio Exilim line of ultra-thin compacts.