Canon PowerShot SD500 Easy Camera Review

The Canon PowerShot SD500 was added in February 2005 to Canon’s Digital ELPH line of stylish compact digital cameras. Although small in build, this camera has a 7.1 megapixel CCD to capture images and produce large prints. Moving away from the hard line rectilinear design of previous models, the Canon PowerShot SD500 employs a smoother style, coined the “Perpetual Curve Design.” The 3x optical zoom lens and automatic controls will appeal directly to point-and-shoot users who are seeking a portable lightweight digital camera with strong image quality. 

The SD500 is sleek and slender, measuring 3.5 x 2.2 x 1 inches and weighing a mere 6 ounces when unloaded. The back of the slim digital camera has a 2-inch LCD screen with 118,000 pixels on it. This is a low pixel count for such a large screen, so picture quality isn’t as smooth as it will turn out in prints. However, it is better than using the optical viewfinder, which does not give photographers an accurate field of view. The PowerShot SD500 has a Print/Share button by the LCD, which streamlines the printing process to PictBridge compatible printers.

The Canon SD500 produces realistic colors, which many slim digital cameras have trouble doing. This model also keeps noise levels fairly low, so you won’t get those pesky purple and green dots in your prints. The SD500 keeps noise low when the ISO sensitivity is automatically set or when it is manually set to 50 or 100. However, the camera doesn’t produce such peachy results in 200 or 400.

ISO is one of a few manual controls on the Canon PowerShot SD500. The others include exposure compensation and white balance. There is also a “long shutter” mode where you can select a shutter speed from 1 to 15 seconds. The auto focus system doesn’t take long to focus, but is a bit finicky when there is a long distance between the subject and photographer.

The Canon SD500 has one of the quickest start-up times of a compact camera at 2.5 seconds. Once it’s powered up, this Digital ELPH can shoot an impressive 2 frames a second.

There are nine scene modes which cover nearly every situation and a highly interesting “My Color” mode. This mode is practically a miniaturized Photoshop contained in the camera. It allows users to choose between settings like Color Accent, Vivid Red, Color Swap, Darker Skin Tone, Lighter Skin Tone, Positive Film, and a plethora of other settings. The movie mode offers three resolution sizes with 640 x 480 and 320 x 240 shooting at a selectable 30 or 15 fps or 160 x 120 at 15 fps. There is also a unique Fast Frame Rate setting that shoots video at a rate of 60 frames per second at 320 x 240 pixels. This mode can only shoot for one minute, but it looks smooth – as long as you don’t blow it up to TV-size.

With the high quality color results and 7.1 megapixel resolution, the Canon PowerShot SD500 seems like a great candidate for the point-and-shooter seeking a digital camera with strong automatic modes and a great movie mode. Adding to these benefits, the SD500 also offers the point-and-shoot user a wide palette of image effects settings when using the “My Color” menu. When paired with the small, slender body, the SD500 becomes an even more attractive option for the traveling photographer looking for speed and efficiency. At a retail price of $499.99, more manual options would be an asset, especially for the novice user looking to advance within the realm of digital photography. That said, it is still a great option with many strong characteristics.

Canon PowerShot SD500 Compared to the...