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New Camera Investment (SD500)

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ECUDMB41

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I am a graduated college student and would like to start catching up on my traveling. I am considering buying the Canon SD500 as my first digital camera. I have a canon "old school" elph with the advantix drop in film. I will be using it for family,friends, and tourist pics. I like the fact that you can take fairly decent movies on it. I'm not a photographer by any means but would like to start taking more pics while I travel, and keep it in my pocket as much as possible. Does anyone have any "heads up" things for me to know or suggestions on other cameras? I would appreciate your feedback.
 
ECUDMB41:

The SD500 has been a hot topic on this forum for the past few weeks with discussions of both the good and the bad. If you haven't already, reading those threads will be a good thing.

--mamallama
ECUDMB41 said:
I am a graduated college student and would like to start catching
up on my traveling. I am considering buying the Canon SD500 as my
first digital camera. I have a canon "old school" elph with the
advantix drop in film. I will be using it for family,friends, and
tourist pics. I like the fact that you can take fairly decent
movies on it. I'm not a photographer by any means but would like to
start taking more pics while I travel, and keep it in my pocket as
much as possible. Does anyone have any "heads up" things for me to
know or suggestions on other cameras? I would appreciate your
feedback.
Click to expand...
 
The light is above the lens, so obviously if there is a distance where the center of the beam crosses the center of the frame, there must also be a distance where it crosses below the center.

On my particular camera, the beam is miscalibrated so that at no reasonable non macro focusing distance does it illuminate significant part of the center focusing point.

This is not true of my S400, where the AF assist beam is so weak to be of dubious value, but nevertheless pointed much more closely towards the center of the frame for reasonable focusing distances.

--
Ron Parr
FAQ: http://www.cs.duke.edu/~parr/photography/faq.html
Gallery: http://www.pbase.com/parr/
 
Ron Parr said:
I just got one yesterday and it needs to go back because the AF
illuminator is misaligned: It points well below the central focus
area.
Click to expand...
Mine is the same way Ron. I decided that Canon did it deliberately because of parallax issues (rationalization perhaps). But all of the three SD500's that I looked at behaved exactly the same. They all had the light lower than I would have chosen. I wonder if the actual focus sensor in the camera also runs on the low side. I say this because it still seems to work OK and if I cover it up the camera doesn't focus as well... so it works, even if it looks to be low. I don't believe yours is a 'one of a kind' QC problem... since all of the ones I have seen did the same thing.
Member said:
This has been a recurring problem with the S series.
Click to expand...
Yes... Both my G5 and G6 do the same thing. That's partly why I decided it must be due to design but I'm only guessing at the reason why.

How do you like the camera so far??
--
kindest regards
Dale

It is possible to make a small fortune in photography, you just have to start with a large fortune.
 
dbuhanan said:
Mine is the same way Ron. I decided that Canon did it deliberately
because of parallax issues (rationalization perhaps). But all of
the three SD500's that I looked at behaved exactly the same. They
all had the light lower than I would have chosen. I wonder if the
actual focus sensor in the camera also runs on the low side. I say
this because it still seems to work OK and if I cover it up the
camera doesn't focus as well... so it works, even if it looks to be
low. I don't believe yours is a 'one of a kind' QC problem...
since all of the ones I have seen did the same thing.
Click to expand...
My S400 is also a bit low, but the SD500 is much lower. It's basically useless for the center AF point.
dbuhanan said:
How do you like the camera so far??
Click to expand...
I haven't had much time to do testing yet. The AF assist lamp is useless, so unless this can be improved, the camera will go back...

--
Ron Parr
FAQ: http://www.cs.duke.edu/~parr/photography/faq.html
Gallery: http://www.pbase.com/parr/
 
I read somewhere on this forum that such misalignment is designed. The purpose of the light is not to illuminate a dark object at the center of the frame, but rather to create edge contrast in dim light to assist in focusing.
 
Ron Parr said:
My S400 is also a bit low, but the SD500 is much lower. It's
basically useless for the center AF point.
Click to expand...
Of course I don't know just how low yours is, Ron, but mine is low enough that the center point AF focus box just barely hits the upper edge of the light circle from about 6 feet away. It clearly is much lower than I imagine it should be! However, it seems to work just fine like this, which led me to think the sensor in use is either a comparitive couplet (one centered and one low) or at least in be able in some fashion to be aware of the low light beam. I felt irritated by the fact that it was low just as you do... but it works just fine. So I'm just going to use it. I still imagine that Canon has a reason for putting it where it is. It is too consistent... although I do wish it were centered, or I knew why. I'd feel better about it. :))
Member said:
I haven't had much time to do testing yet. The AF assist lamp is
useless, so unless this can be improved, the camera will go back...
Click to expand...
I hope you can find one that is better centered and it improves AF response. I can only tell you what mine is like and the others I looked at. I have never seen one perfectly centered the way I would like it.

And I agree with your parallax comment earlier. The light starts out above the lens and ends up way lower twhen used at my normal shooting distances... which means it crosses over at a fairly close distance... slightly beyond macro range.

A thought... I wonder if the actual sensor is substantially larger than the center point AF box? And I wonder then if with the bottom portion illuminated and the top portion more in shadow if a greater contrast potential exists - which aids focus?? All I can say is... it seems to work just fine this way on mine.
--
kindest regards
Dale

It is possible to make a small fortune in photography, you just have to start with a large fortune.
 
dbuhanan said:
Ron Parr said:
My S400 is also a bit low, but the SD500 is much lower. It's
basically useless for the center AF point.
Click to expand...
Of course I don't know just how low yours is, Ron, but mine is low
enough that the center point AF focus box just barely hits the
upper edge of the light circle from about 6 feet away.
Click to expand...
Sounds pretty similar to mine.
dbuhanan said:
It clearly
is much lower than I imagine it should be! However, it seems to
work just fine like this, which led me to think the sensor in use
is either a comparitive couplet (one centered and one low) or at
least in be able in some fashion to be aware of the low light beam.
I felt irritated by the fact that it was low just as you do... but
it works just fine. So I'm just going to use it. I still imagine
that Canon has a reason for putting it where it is. It is too
consistent... although I do wish it were centered, or I knew why.
I'd feel better about it. :))
Click to expand...
I wish I could say that mine worked just fine. When I turn off AiAF, I can very rarely get a focus lock on the center point in situations that call for the AF assist beam.

When I turn AiAF on, it always locks on the lower, middle box because this is the only one with any light.

--
Ron Parr
FAQ: http://www.cs.duke.edu/~parr/photography/faq.html
Gallery: http://www.pbase.com/parr/
 
Ron Parr said:
dbuhanan said:
Ron Parr said:
My S400 is also a bit low, but the SD500 is much lower. It's
basically useless for the center AF point.
Click to expand...
Of course I don't know just how low yours is, Ron, but mine is low
enough that the center point AF focus box just barely hits the
upper edge of the light circle from about 6 feet away.
Click to expand...
Sounds pretty similar to mine.
Member said:
It clearly
is much lower than I imagine it should be! However, it seems to
work just fine like this, which led me to think the sensor in use
is either a comparitive couplet (one centered and one low) or at
least in be able in some fashion to be aware of the low light beam.
I felt irritated by the fact that it was low just as you do... but
it works just fine. So I'm just going to use it. I still imagine
that Canon has a reason for putting it where it is. It is too
consistent... although I do wish it were centered, or I knew why.
I'd feel better about it. :))
Click to expand...
I wish I could say that mine worked just fine. When I turn off
AiAF, I can very rarely get a focus lock on the center point in
situations that call for the AF assist beam.

When I turn AiAF on, it always locks on the lower, middle box
because this is the only one with any light.
Click to expand...
That's a pretty convincing observation, Ron. I'll have to duplicate it here. I haven't really tried with AiAf... I promptly turned it off when I got the camera. But mine still focuses pretty well ...and very quickly. I was very pleased with that part. I do wish the light were higher, especially if it makes it work better. :) See if you can find one that is centered while you are still able to return the one you have. Mine is past the date of being able to return it gracefully... and besides... they didn't have a better one, so I just sucked it up.
--
kindest regards
Dale

It is possible to make a small fortune in photography, you just have to start with a large fortune.
 
Ron Parr said:
When I turn AiAF on, it always locks on the lower, middle box
because this is the only one with any light.
Click to expand...
I tried the same thing here with very mixed results, Ron. With AiAF on it seems to lock on boxes all over the screen, almost independent of where the AF assist light was.

I was focusing on a floral print 'back of the couch' here in the office from about 5 feet away in a darkened room with only light coming in from the other room. No room lighting on at all. It was dark enough that I didn't expect the camera to be able to focus at all in fact, and the orange light was quite bright in comparison to the ambient light. I couldn't focus at all in tele-mode and it would only focus from wide to about 1/2 the way out. No focus lockup possible even with no camera movement beyond half way out. I presume this was due to the decreasing f-stop with zoom length.

Anyway, sometimes it would lockip down where the light was, sometimes it would lock center, and often it would lock to either the left or right of center depending on slight camera movement and where it found flowers with good contrast. I can't say I saw a strong preference for focusing where the AF assist light was however... which I find disturbing.
--
kindest regards
Dale

It is possible to make a small fortune in photography, you just have to start with a large fortune.
 
I should have added that occassionally it would lock focus with one or more of the boxes in the upper half of the screen well away from where any of the AF assist illumination could be seen at all! I don't know how or why, because this was in a pretty dark room. Too dark to read anything in fact. The couch was one of those cream/beige couches with rose green floral print patterns.
--
kindest regards
Dale

It is possible to make a small fortune in photography, you just have to start with a large fortune.
 
That Sony apparently continues to blow away Canon in the ability for it's digicams to focus on low light situations. Why is that, what's the big secret that Canon can't catch on. This is observations from what I read, never owning a Sony. I will not bother to spend the money to replace my S400 with another Canon until the situation is improved.
 
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