Canon PowerShot SX500 IS Digital Camera - Black (16.0 MP, 30x Optical Zoom) 3.0 inch LCD

Product Information

In addition, the SX500 also offers a range of Creative Filters with which it’s possible to add digital effects to your images in-camera without the need for a computer or any specialist software. There’s no Raw image capture though, which means the SX500 is strictly JPEG only – you do get a choice of resolution settings, however, should you be looking to conserve space on your memory card, or if you’re just shooting non-critical snapshots destined solely for the internet. Approx. 0.8 shots/sec. with AF: Approx. 0.5 shots/sec. LV: Approx. 0.6 shots/sec.(until memory card becomes full)¹² We mentioned at the beginning of this review how the SX500’s ISO range is limited to ISO 1600, which is at least a stop (or perhaps even two stops) below what we might have expected to see on a compact of this type and price. However, in testing we did find that the camera performs quite well –even at ISO 1600 images still remain useable for non-critical purposes, although there is a loss of fine detail thanks to the effects of the in-camera noise reduction. At ISO 800 and 1600 colour is also slightly muted, although not to the overall detriment of the image.

Image quality starts to break down around ISO 800 with noticeable noise at normal viewing distance. Up close sees noise reduction software battling to maintain an air of quality. By the end setting of ISO 1600, edge definition has broken - although there's still a degree of image quality, noise affects all areas of the picture with streaks of green in the darker areas. The SX500’s 30x optical zoom offers the 35mm focal range equivalent of between 24-720mm, which is plenty wide enough to take large group shots at the wideangle end or to fill the frame with faraway objects at the telephoto end. Maximum aperture at 24mm is f/3.4 rising incrementally to f/5.8 at 720mm. Neither is particularly fast, although given the engineering constraints incurred by cramming such a large focal range into such a small optic, this isn’t wholly unexpected.

Using the Canon PowerShot SX500 IS is a lot easier than you might think just by looking at it. After all, it's designed to look like something of higher specification than what it actually is. However, Canon have ensured that the user interface is simple but not to a dumbed down degree. We liked using it out and about and found it easy to get shots that we would normally have to walk to; thereby preventing a task that, frankly, we'd rather not do anyway. The build is good, we liked the design because everything seemed to fall into place as we used it.

Then menu is extremely easy to use. As with all Canon digital compact cameras the user interface is intuitive and nicely coloured so it's easy to work out where you are and where you need to go next. The menu system will change depending on the level you set the camera at. For example, if you have the camera in Auto, the number of options available to you are vastly smaller than if the camera is in Program. These two modes do pretty much the same thing but in Program you get to choose advanced features such as ISO, white-balance and metering. With the flash off, the Canon PowerShot SX500 IS does suffer from some vignetting at wide-angle. This all but disappears as the camera is zoomed in. Using flash at wide-angle exacerbates the vignette but eradicates it at full zoom.All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 16 megapixel SuperFine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 6Mb. The Canon PowerShot SX500 IS represents something of an anomaly in that it straddles the gap somewhere between ultracompact and superzoom. The first thing that strikes you about it is the size; it’s a very small camera, and yet within its diminutive body Canon has somehow managed to engineer a 30x optical zoom. In terms of focal range this pushes the SX500 beyond the traditional 16-20x reach common to many travel compacts and well into superzoom territory.