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With general use, the Canon PowerShot SX500 IS' pictures are good. They're sharp and well exposed. Colours could be better but they're close enough to realistic so we don't really have anything to complain about. The lab test shots, however, left a lot to be desired. We found noise at low ISO settings where there really shouldn't be any and chromatic aberrations that we didn't expect from a Canon. Yes, our expectations are high but they are one of the biggest manufacturers in the world and have a reputation to uphold, not to mention stiff competition to beat. Images are sharp enough on the Canon PowerShot SX500 IS without needing a boost in an editing suite. You can do it if that's what you prefer but if there's any noise in the image (which there generally is), it will boost it. If you're after a little compact that gives you most of the features and control of a prosumer/DSLR then the Canon PowerShot SX500 IS is perfect. It has the large zoom to cover all eventualities as well as auto and manual controls to either let you express your inner artist or simply give control over to the camera so you don't have to worry. There are nifty little features such as the framing button on the side of the lens barrel and Zoom Plus (which could actually be useful) to help get the best pictures. The SX500 comes equipped with a good range of exposure modes. Those who prefer to let the camera do all the work can take advantage of the Smart Auto mode and let the camera choose a suitable setting from over 30 pre-programmed scenes. Those who want to take more direct control over the camera will find the full range of PASM modes to hand as well.
The top end of the zoom doesn't actually end there either. There's a 60x smart zoom on top of the 30x optical zoom. Now the great thing about that is it uses the same resolution as the smaller zoom. However, the compression is much lower recording roughly half the information. There's also a digital zoom that crops into the sensor and enlarges it. Effectively pixels are then enlarged and the image quality suffers. All these features are found on other digital bridge type cameras such as this Canon PowerShot SX500 IS. There is a mode of note that really helps with framing and composition. On the left of the lens barrel is a button with a square that has four arrows shooting out of each corner on it. If you want to zoom out a little just to miss out a bit of overhanging building or crop a person out, you can hold this button and zoom as normal. The Zoom Framing Assist will retain the wide-angle screen but show a virtual zoomed in square on the screen. You can then decide what to zoom in and crop out before releasing the button. Upon releasing, the camera will zoom to the point that you decided on. Given the extended reach it’s good to know that the SX500 benefits from Canon’s own lens-based Intelligent IS stabilisation technology. This is designed to help keep images sharp at extended focal lengths and slower shutter speeds, where natural camera shake might otherwise show up as blurred images. And if 30x doesn’t sound like it offers quite enough telephoto reach then the SX500’s zoom can be further extended up to a maximum of 60x via Canon’s ‘ZoomPlus’ technology. It’s worth noting, however, that this involves an advanced pixel interpolation process, rather than anything purely optical, so don’t expect to achieve the same level of image quality when using it. If you're new to photography, you want something a bit better than the cheapest models and you want to learn the art, then the Canon PowerShot SX500 IS will give you the features, modes and zoom you need. Give this camera a go.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. There are a number of ways to view the pictures you've already taken. You can look at the whole picture, view it with information, with detailed shooting information including a histogram, or a pixel peep option which we ended up using more than any other. It shows the picture in the top left corner with a zoomed in version in the bottom right. You can then crop into this and view the sharpness of the picture. 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.
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. One of the SX500 IS' advantages is that it's made for more than fully automatic shooting. Among the many shooting options on the camera's mode dial are shutter-priority, aperture-priority, and manual. Available apertures at the wide end are f3.4, f4.0, f4.5, f5.0, f5.6, f6.3, f7.1, and f8.0; at telephoto you get f5.8, f6.3, f7.1, and f8.0. Shutter speeds go from 15 seconds down to 1/1,600 second. If that's too much control for you, you can switch to Program and control everything but shutter speed and aperture. At full 16 megapixel resolution, there are two JPEG quality settings available - SuperFine and Fine. 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. 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.Using the batteries and memory card format supplied with the camera (where included), except where indicated.
The following Speed Class memory cards are required for maximum record time: (HD) 1280 x 720 Speed Class 4 or above. (Full HD) 1920 x 1080 Speed Class 6 or above. (iFrame) 1280 x 720 Speed Class 6 or above. English, German, French, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Italian, Greek, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Spanish, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Turkish, Simplified Chinese, Chinese (traditional), Japanese, Korean, Thai, Arabic, Romanian, Farsi, Hindi, Malay, Indonesian, Vietnamese Several cameras in this class use AA-size batteries for power; the SX500 IS does not. Instead you get a small rechargeable lithium ion battery, which saves on space and weight and gives you good, if not great, battery life. Although it's rated for 190 shots, keep in mind that using the zoom lens a lot, raising the screen brightness, continuously shooting, or recording movies, among other things, will eat into that battery life.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. 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. Canon SELPHY Compact Photo Printers and Canon Inkjet Printers supporting PictBridge (ID Photo Print, Fixed Size Print and Movie Print supported on SELPHY CP & ES printers only) Digital Approx. 4x (with Digital Tele-Converter Approx. 1.6x or 2.0x and Safety Zoom¹). Combined Approx. 120x Approx. 0.8 shots/sec. with AF: Approx. 0.5 shots/sec. LV: Approx. 0.6 shots/sec.(until memory card becomes full)¹²
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