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Smart Auto (21 scenes detected), Standard, iFrame Movie, Program AE, Portrait, Snow, Fireworks, Miniature Effect, Monochrome, Super Vivid, Poster Effect The Canon PowerShot SX500 IS holds an ultrawide-angle 30x zoom lens in a very small, very light body. It offers more shooting options -- including semimanual and manual controls -- than most in its class, and has very good optical image stabilization. Expertise Laptops, desktops and computer and PC gaming accessories including keyboards, mice and controllers, cameras, action cameras and drones Credentials 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. Despite autofocus improvements, the SX500 IS' shooting performance might still be too slow for action shots, especially indoors. It's not a great choice for handheld low-light shots.
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. 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. 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. 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 is one of the smallest cameras on the market to feature a massive 30x optical zoom. Despite possessing such diminutive dimensions, the compact still features full manual control and a host of other features that look to assert it as a serious shooter. The question is, has anything been compromised in cramming such a large feature-set in to a small body?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. 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 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.
In terms of video capture, the SX500 does offer the ability to record 720p HD video capture, although there’s no option to record 1080p Full HD movies, which is a little unusual – not to mention disappointing – for a camera of this type and price. 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. If you want a smaller camera, you'll need to make a compromise on zoom range and if you want a longer zoom range you'll be carrying a bigger, heavier camera. Start-up time is as fast as to be expected. We got times that we're used to seeing which is around 2.5 seconds. The Canon PowerShot SX500 IS shares the same sensor and processor as the PowerShot SX160 IS which we recently reviewed. That has a slow continuous shooting speed of around 0.5fps (frames per second) and we thought maybe the SX500 may have some tweaking done to speed it up a bit. Unfortunately not as it gives the same performance.Smart Auto (32 scenes detected), Program AE, Shutter priority AE, Aperture priority AE, Manual, Live View Control, SCN (Portrait, FaceSelf-Timer, Low Light (4.0MP), Snow, Fireworks), Creative Filters (Fish-eye Effect, Miniature Effect, Toy Camera Effect, Monochrome, Super Vivid, Poster Effect), Discreet, Movie All data is based on Canon standard testing methods (according to CIPA Standards) except where indicated. In our lab tests, from off to first capture took on average 2.3 seconds, while shot-to-shot times averaged 2.5 seconds. Turning on the flash slowed that down to 4.4 seconds. Shutter lag -- the time from pressing the shutter release to capture without prefocusing -- took 0.3 second in bright lighting; in low light it was longer at 0.7 second. Zooming in extends that wait to about 1 second. By today's standards, the Canon PowerShot SX500 IS's 16 megapixel resolution is relatively modest. It's fair to say that there's nothing wrong with this and more people are starting to understand this. More importantly, manufacturers have realised that resolution doesn't sell anymore.
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.
Image Quality
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. 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. Delving into the menu, it's simple enough to follow. All features have been put on one screen with just only a print menu as an addition. You can do some basic editing here, erase pictures, protect and rotate them. Emphasis isn't so much on sharing pictures as it is on some other cameras. There's a slide-show option but that's pretty much it. In the print menu, you can preset pictures that you want printing if you use the Pictbridge facility. Pictbridge is a universal connection for printers and cameras. It means that if you have a Canon printer, you don't necessarily need a Canon camera to direct print. Pictures at night taken in auto or program are much better than the low light setting (there's no night scene mode we could find) which boosts ISO to a ridiculous setting. In our test shot we could barely tell the scene. The North Star is visible in our shots though.
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