Digital Camera Review

Digital Camera Review

Canon added the 7.1-megapixel PowerShot SD500 to its Digital ELPH line in February, 2005. The new model again expresses Canon’s ELPH-line philosophy of excellent imaging in small packaging; the SD500 has a 1/1.8-inch CCD with 7.4 total megapixels and a Canon Digic II image processor housed in its thin, 6-ounce durable plastic body. Canon engineers departed from the sharp, linear ELPH aesthetic, opting for a more fluid styling, dubbed the “Perpetual Curve Design.” The compact camera boasts a 3x optical zoom lens and 2-inch LCD screen and retails for a bold $499.99 (USD). The PowerShot SD500 relies on a hefty selection of automatic and preset options. It does add a few manual controls, but it is still likely to disappoint manual photographers without the inclusion of aperture and shutter speed controls. Nevertheless, this Digital ELPH packs a lot of power into its sleek steel-colored, compact body and should be a popular model in the compact high-resolution camera segment this year.
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Likes

-Sleek, stylish look
-Unusual My Colors mode
-3 images sizes in movie mode with fast frame rates
-Enough megapixels to print a billboard

Dislikes

-Lack of aperture and shutter speed controls
-Unless shooting in bright light, noise will be a recurring problem
-Limited sensitivity range (if offering long exposure option)
-Overpriced MSRP of $499
-zoom switch is not comfortable

Conclusion
The Canon PowerShot SD500 now leads the Digital ELPH-line with 7.1 megapixels on a large 1/1.8-inch CCD, though it strays from the sharp lines of the previous models. With its Perpetual Curve Design and compact body, the digital camera has a stylish look that can easily fit in a shirt pocket. The SD500 has many impressive features, including a custom self-timer that can be set from 1-30 seconds, a nice range of movie modes with an offered 60-frame-per-second Fast Frame Rate setting, as well as an exhausting selection of color modes that may lead users to abandon Photoshop altogether. The SD500’s most glaring omission is the lack of manual controls offered at its price point. At $499, consumers are purely paying for style and megapixels. While both are provided, the majority of consumers are not looking to make 20 x 30-inch prints of snapshots. While the PowerShot SD500 is an easily portable digital camera with an abundance of features, intrigued consumers should be sure that the camera’s limitations will not get in their way before purchasing.

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