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Canon Digital IXUS 500
The Canon Digital IXUS 500 is a sparkly camera with easy to use features and delivering good photo quality. Weighing 228 g, it has a pocket-sized framework to enable easy portability. With a matte-silver finishing, the plastic cum metal framework looks dazzling.
The controls of IXUS are nicely arranged which facilitates easy access to many of the oft used functions like metering, drive-mode selection, flash etc. On pressing the ‘Func’ control, you are exposed to a menu which includes the more sophisticated functions like exposure compensation, ISO sensitivity and image quality.
IXUS 500 is equipped with the essential snapshot features. The 3x zoom lens has the maximum aperture of F2.8 to F4.9 which is rather speedy. But the angle of view is slender with a 36mm-to-108mm range.
Light sensitivity feature can either be automatic or manual. Among the available ISO settings you can find 50, 100, 200, and 400. For white balance, you can make use of the automatic option, some preset and manual controls.
While all the customary snapshot features are present, if you are on the look out for advanced functions like contextual help menus and scene program modes, this camera is not of much use.
IXUS 500 is capable of taking JPEG photos at four different resolutions. You can shoot only 30-second videos of 640x480-pixel at 10 frames per second, miserable compared some of the other models existing in the market.
Overall performance of IXUS 500 is quite mediocre. It takes approximately 3.5 seconds to be ready for use. Changing between modes also takes more time. The shutter lag is of 0.9 second in bright day light; and in dark environment it is just over a second. Reprocessing time between shots is of 2 seconds in day light and a second more in flash light.
The zoom lens is bumpy and a tad deafening too. Autofocus performs well in nice lighting conditions while the assist lamp is valuable up to a maximum of 10 feet in faint light conditions.
Manually selected ISO’s increase the noise emitted out of the camera at time of clicking. The optical viewfinder is too small to be of much help. Although the 1.5 inch LCD too is tiny, the results delivered are very much acceptable.
While IXUS 500 performs reasonably with most of its integrated features, the fact remains there are better cameras in the market offering enhanced features. And hence the IXUS falls in the category of an average camera rather than a great, revolutionary one.
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Great for amateur photographers
The IXUS 500 is my first digital camera and its has been a joyful experience no doubt. I found the 500 good on a number of counts. It’s very simple to operate and hence even a first timer like me did not have any problem. I suggest all the first time photographers should purchase this. Being very small it nicely fits into your hands and since it looks so good, you don’t need to hide it. It is no heavy either. The autofocus is really useful as I realized when I used it in dark settings. It does have a few faults. Only a couple that I can point out. First the memory capacity is too small, even considering that it has the expansion facility. Using the zoom I got some pixilated pictures. And it look horribly bad. That apart, I would still say this is a good camera. So if you are a beginner photographer like me, I wud strongly recommend the Canon IXUS 500.
User Rating : 8 /10  (
by :
sillysamantha on
Mon, 12 Sep 2005 12:26:23 GMT
)
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