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

Product Information

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.

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. 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. Approx. 0.8 shots/sec. with AF: Approx. 0.5 shots/sec. LV: Approx. 0.6 shots/sec.(until memory card becomes full)¹² It has its limitations, but the Canon PowerShot SX500 IS is a good choice for zoom addicts on a budget. Expertise Laptops, desktops and computer and PC gaming accessories including keyboards, mice and controllers, cameras, action cameras and drones CredentialsWith 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. While it’s a shame that the SX500 doesn’t offer the ability to record 1080p Full HD video, the movie capture mode otherwise performs quite well. You can choose from a range of different capture modes, and it’s also possible to apply some of the digital effects filters that are offered in stills mode should you want to. Elsewhere, the SX500 generally feels quite responsive, with little in the way of shutter lag noticeable.

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. 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. If you pop the flash up and press the flash button, you can then press menu to enter a flash menu section. Here you can adjust the power of the flash, switch the red-eye correction on, the red-eye lamp and Safety FE. Safety FE is an over-riding system that will limit flash brightness if the camera thinks it will bleach out a subject. It's like an auto flash compensation. If you want to handle it manually or purposefully bleach something, you need to switch it off.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. 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. 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?

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. Up at ISO 400 is where the noise starts to be more visible and can result in some noticeable yellow blotching. Going above that you'll start to see more color noise, artifacts, and loss of detail, which just results in subjects that appear soft and desaturated. The camera definitely favors dropping shutter speed over raising ISO when left in auto. That's good in general, but if you're not paying attention it could result in blurry photos. 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. Paul joined What Digital Camera magazine at the start of 2007 having graduated from the University of Exeter.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. 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. 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 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.

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. Noise and artifacts are visible even at ISO 100 when pixel peeping, so if the quality at full size is something that matters to you, this camera will probably disappoint. On the other hand, up to ISO 200 you get good enough detail that you can still do some enlarging and cropping. 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.At full 16 megapixel resolution, there are two JPEG quality settings available - SuperFine and Fine. 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. 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 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. 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.