This very compact, sleek 7-megapixel digicam is amazing. Smaller than the proverbial deck of cards but about as thick, the SD500 (around $450) is truly a go anywhere point-and-shoot digicam. It slips so easily into a pocket you’ll take it with you everywhere and that’s a good thing since you’ll grab great spontaneous photographs all of the time. And it’s light years ahead of any cameraphone, today’s chic casual photography solution.
The all-metal SD500 has a 3x optical zoom with a 37mm-111mm range (35mm equivalent) that mirrors the classic film point-and-shoot zoom. Unlike 20th Century film cameras, this one has a large LCD screen to frame and review your images (2 inches rated a decent 118K pixels). This camera does not have all the bells-and-whistles found on higher-priced Canons but it’s clearly not designed for the frustrated Lee Friedlanders out there. It’s for the person who wants style, convenience, simple operation and good quality… meaning about 99 percent of the people on the planet!
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The latest addition to Canon’s Digital Elph/IXUS line is the SD500 (IXUS 700 in Europe) which offers a 7.1 megapixel resolution. This new camera retains the family’s good looks, offering a 3X zoom and a 2-inch LCD monitor.
Barely bigger than previous models, the SD500 is a touch more rounded but still entirely metal-clad with a satin finish. The lens trim and the wrist strap post are both thickly chromed, their gloss combining with the satin surfaces to give this very compact camera a luxurious appearance.
Although the SD500 is a very compact camera with a 2-inch LCD screen composed of 118 000 pixels, Canon has also given it an optical viewfinder. The viewfinder is quite plain, providing only a cross at its centre and no parallax indication and when the zoom is set to the wide angle end, the lens can be seen through the viewfinder. Nevertheless, it is commendable that it is available, and it comes in handy when the monitor is difficult to see because of direct sunlight, or when power needs to be economized.
All in all, the SD500 delivers great images without much effort on the part of the user. Photos have bright colours but the colours are not over-saturated and therefore remain faithful to reality.
In our opinion, the SD500 only has very minor drawbacks: for one, it does not have a fully manual mode that gives control over the aperture, a useful feature as it provides some control over the depth of field of an image; and for another the monitor omits to indicate the shutter speed and aperture the camera has selected
Overall though, the PowerShot SD500 is an good mix of some of the best features of current Canon digital cameras, including ease of use, great image quality, and high resolution.
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Image wise, the camera as you would expect from 7 megapixels takes a good shot with plenty of detail. The Ixus 700 features the Digic II processor found in the 350D and the 20D giving you a quick response time for those moments when speed is of the essence and the ability to shoot 2 fps until memory card is full. Combine this with the cameras several automated modes and you’ve got a camera suitable for most situations. Those with a photographic streak can manually set most elements if they want to. We found the flash to be a tiny bit too powerful (see examples) although we’ve found this on most Ixus models.
Colour wise, the camera coped well with the different subjects we tested it with. The multiple amount of greens on in the garden shot shows plenty of definition although highlights – see the flowers were slightly high compared with the midtones and shadows.
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The Canon IXUS 700 is a stylish, well made digital camera. It has seven megapixels and a three times optical zoom lens. It is aimed at anyone who is looking for a digital camera with a fairly standard set of features and is prepared to pay a bit more for the build quality.
The IXUS 700 manages to strike just about the right balance between features and ease of use. It will take care of all the usual photo opportunities such as holiday snaps, parties, general social gatherings and photos for the family album.
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The Canon IXUS 700 / 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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