Reviews Written by giahunga18v2@yahoo.com

PowerShot SD500

Pros: User Friendly

Cons: PowerShot SD500

Camera performance is excellent, again thanks to the DIGIC II processor. Whether it's startup, shutter lag, shot-to-shot, or playback speed that you're measuring, the SD500 blows away the competition. Low light focusing is also very good thanks to the SD500's AF-assist lamp, and the newly added support for USB 2.0 High Speed is a nice bonus. Both the movie and continuous shooting modes are excellent, as long as you're using a high speed memory card. The movie mode lets you record VGA size video at 30 frames/second until the memory card is full. Similarly, the continuous shooting mode will keep firing away at 2 frames/second until you run out of space on the card. The new My Colors feature is interesting and kind of fun, though I have to wonder how often it will be used after the novelty wears off. In terms of manual controls, the SD500 is a mixed bag. You can create a custom white balance setting and pick a long shutter speed, but other useful things like manual focus or the ability to choose a fast shutter speed are missing. Point-and-shoot lovers will be pleased with the selection of scene modes on thee camera, but again, where's the action mode?

There isn't too much else to complain about, as I've slipped most of the SD500's negatives in the previous two paragraphs. As you'd expect on a camera like this, redeye is a problem. While the battery life is improved over the earlier SD models, it's still not as good as some of the competition. And finally, you cannot swap memory cards while the camera is on a tripod. ...