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

Product Information

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In trying to make it as small as possible, yet maintain the 30x optical zoom, Canon has had to make a few compromises, notedly not offering full 1080p video capture, doing away with a viewfinder and scaling back on-camera controls. On the other hand, up to ISO 200 you get good enough detail that you can still do some enlarging and cropping. In the box, there's the usual bag of mashings such as the camera, lithium ion battery and a charger with a figure eight lead. The PowerShot SX500 IS provides an unbeatable combination of massive zoom range in a compact lightweight body that, for now at least, is unmatched by anyone else.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. 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. 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. This useful little feature is designed to help you keep track of subjects at long telephoto settings; pressing the button pulls the zoom right back to wideangle so that you can easily re-centre your subject. It's fair to say that there's nothing wrong with this and more people are starting to understand this.

Given the extended reach it’s good to know that the SX500 benefits from Canon’s own lens-based Intelligent IS stabilisation technology. The sensor is a 16 Megapixel CCD paired up with the Digic 4 processor to provide features like scene detection and Face detect AF. Other standout features include a Smart Auto mode that detects 32 scenes, ISO 100-1600, Zoom Framing Assist, and a range of Creative Filters.Paul joined What Digital Camera magazine at the start of 2007 having graduated from the University of Exeter. Ultimately then, while the SX500 is an excellent camera on the whole it’s unlikely to be to everyone’s taste.