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The Canon PowerShot
SD500 digital camera
Design and Construction
In the looks department, the Canon PowerShot SD500 is pleasingly
comfortable to hold and operate. However, it can be easy to press the tightly laid-out
buttons on the back accidentally during one-handed shooting. The optical
viewfinder just above the large 2-inch LCD is very nice, and maintains a fairly smooth,
bright, clear image when panning. Optics and Resolution Aside from the 7.1 megapixel rating, the Canon PowerShot SD500 has most of
the standard features of its class, including an f/2.8 to f/4.9, 7.7- to 23.1-mm
(37- to 111-mm, 35mm equivalent), 3X optical zoom lens. User Controls The Canon PowerShot SD500 has a very intuitive user control system. It also offers a very interesting shooting mode called My Colors. You can make blues, greens, or reds more vibrant, or lighten or darken skin tones. The Color Accent and Color Swap options create some surreal effects. Color Accent lets you isolate the color of one object, while the color information for the rest of the photograph is dumped. The result might be a bright red rose in the middle of a black-and-white wedding shot. In Color Swap mode, you choose a particular color
in a scene on the LCD, and then select the color you want to swap it with. For
example, you could isolate someone's bright red T-shirt and swap it with the
blue from someone's baseball cap. You have to make your color selections before
you shoot, though, so make sure you're not going to miss the shot. Storage and Transfer
The Canon PowerShot SD500 allows your pictures to be stored in SD memory cards.
There's also direct connection to Canon CP Printers and select BJ Printers. This
effectively means that you do not need a computer to print pictures. Battery Life The Canon PowerShot SD500 makes use of proprietary lithium batteries. The advertised battery life is about 160 shots with the LCD on and about 550 shots with the LCD off. If a long battery life is very important for you, you can always pack along some extras - buy them at your local camera store.
Another unusual feature is an optional DC coupler, supported via a flap on the
battery/media compartment door. This lets you run the camera off AC power (via
an optional adapter) while you charge the battery in the included external
charger. Shortcomings On the whole, the Canon PowerShot SD500 is a great camera. One shortcoming is that it has some problems finding the intended focusing point in Macro mode. Also, when the flash fired in the macro shots, most of the picture was very overexposed — except for some areas near the bottom of the image, where a dark shadow appeared because of the extended lens blocking the flash. The other thing I don't like is the mode dial design: Only the center
(Manual) mode's label appears level when selected. The labels for Playback,
Auto, Macro, and Movie are slanted when you turn the dial. On the whole, the Canon PowerShot SD500 is a great ultracompact camera. It looks wonderful and gives impressive image quality. Add a couple of unusual features, and you have a versatile camera that is destined to be a hot-seller.
Related ArticlesYou may also wish to read the following related articles:
A review
of the Canon PowerShot A95 digital camera © 2006 Basic-Digital-Photography.com
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