Manual Control Options
This Canon Digital ELPH offers several manual control options, including aperture, shutter speed, exposure compensation, ISO, white balance, and color mode. The variety of options is sufficient and having a true custom white balance mode is indispensable. Great manual options such as these, paired with automatic settings, make a powerful package for the mobile digital camera consumer.

Focus
Auto
This digital camera employs a 9-point AiAF Smart auto focus system that can focus fairly quickly. In less than perfect light, the SD500 has an AF assist beam to aid the lens’ focusing. For added simplicity, when the LCD screen is used as a viewfinder, a green box is placed around the portion of the picture that is in focus.

Manual
The SD500 does not offer manual focus, which is a common sacrifice for compact point-and-shoot digital cameras.

Exposure
Exposure compensation is offered in the standard +/- 2 range, moving in 1/3 stop increments.

White Balance
The Canon SD500 has a wide range of white balance settings, from fully automatic to fully manual and a few presets in between. The following presets are available: Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, and Fluorescent H.

ISO
As with most digital cameras, there is an automatic ISO setting, although users have the option of selecting the ISO speed manually. The following standard range is offered: 50, 100, 200, and 400.

Shutter Speed
With a shutter speed range of 15-1/2000^th of a second, this Digital ELPH is prepared to shoot subjects in all lighting situations, in motion or at a variety of speeds. The shutter speed is automatically determined by the camera.

Aperture
The Canon SD500 has an aperture range from f/2.8-f/7.1 in the widest setting and a range of f/4.9-f/13 in full telephoto.