Silent Devotion

One camera to watch available on the market today is the Canon PowerShot SD500 Digital Elph. Coming with an impressive 7.1 megapixel resolution this camera provides superior image quality.

The SD500 executes well on speed and sharpness tests. It also got a fun My Color feature that will be sure to please many kinds of users.

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.

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.

All the standard modes are available via the mode dial as well as through the menu system, including Playback, Auto, Manual (which lets you adjust white balance, ISO, EV compensation, and color effects), Macro, and Movie. The Movie mode lets you capture VGA video clips at 30 frames per second. Other modes available only via the menu system include Stitch Assist (for panoramas) and nine preset scene modes.

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.

Fantastic effects are created with the Color Accent and Swap Options. Color Accent allows you to isolate the color of one object, while the color information for the remaining portion of the photograph is removed. The result might be the bright yellow sun in the middle of a black-and-white sky.

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.

The Canon PowerShot SD500 allocates your pictures to SD memory cards for storage. There’s also direct link to Canon CP Printers and select BJ Printers. This in fact means that you do not need a computer to print pictures.

The Canon PowerShot SD500 makes use of proprietary lithium batteries. The marketed battery life is about 160 shots with the LCD on and about 550 shots with the LCD off. If a long battery life is a necessity, extra batteries are available for purchase at your local camera store so you can take along extras.

Another unusual feature is an elective DC coupler, supported by a flap on the battery/media compartment door. This lets you operate the camera from AC power (by the use of an optional adapter) while you charge the battery in the included external charger.

Overall, the Canon PowerShot SD500 is a smart little camera for the value. A few notes however are that it has some difficulty finding the intended focusing point in Macro mode. Macro mode also has the fault of overexposing pictures when the flash is used except for the bottom area of the image that is dark due to the extended lens blocking the flash.

The mode design could also be modified. Only the center (Manual) mode appears level when selected. The remaining modes: Playback, Auto, Macro and Movie are slanted as 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