I bought this camera as a present for myself nearly two years ago at Christmas. At the time, I bought three cameras to compare, Sony DSC-W1, Nikon Coolpix 4100 and the Canon S500. I liked the instant on of the Sony, as well as the large screen. Nikon also had a fast startup. I picked up the Canon because I had prior experience with the S400, of which I admired the picture quality. I did a shootout on my own. Instantly, the Sony got blown out of the water by the Nikon and Canon in terms of picture quality. The Nikon and Canon were close contenders. Ultimately, the Canon offer greater detail in the photographs than the Nikon. I also found the Coolpix colors to bee too rich, although that can be circumvented with a little post processing. I kept the Canon and returned the other two.
It has been nearly two years, and about 4000 photos. The cameras has seen several continents, numerous landscapes, and varied lighting conditions. It has delivered supreme performance throughout. Some of the pictures it has taken rival professional, published images. I have played with numerous compact and ultra compact cameras over the span of ownership and across the board, the S500 delivers on par or better images than the latest offerings out there. It may not have the fancy big screen, or the latest ergonomic shape, but what is important to me is the image quality, and this little thing delivers time and time again. The manual controls are a great bonus, something a lot of recent models have been stripped of.
Problems:
- Slow startup. I do a lot of mountain biking and like to capture my friends riding. A lot of times the camera takes too long to start up to capture the moment.
- Low light performance. This camera doesn't deal well with low light conditions. It can focus alright, however, the ISO performance is fairly slow, so the exposure time increases, it has no image stabilization features, so the frequent result is blurry images.
- Flash. Well, it is a compact camera, bordering on ultra compact. The flash is weak, and there are very few instances the photos benefit from its use. For the most part I disable it. It isn't really an issue with this camera, however, rather an issue with this segment of cameras.
It has been nearly two years, and about 4000 photos. The cameras has seen several continents, numerous landscapes, and varied lighting conditions. It has delivered supreme performance throughout. Some of the pictures it has taken rival professional, published images. I have played with numerous compact and ultra compact cameras over the span of ownership and across the board, the S500 delivers on par or better images than the latest offerings out there. It may not have the fancy big screen, or the latest ergonomic shape, but what is important to me is the image quality, and this little thing delivers time and time again. The manual controls are a great bonus, something a lot of recent models have been stripped of.
Problems:
- Slow startup. I do a lot of mountain biking and like to capture my friends riding. A lot of times the camera takes too long to start up to capture the moment.
- Low light performance. This camera doesn't deal well with low light conditions. It can focus alright, however, the ISO performance is fairly slow, so the exposure time increases, it has no image stabilization features, so the frequent result is blurry images.
- Flash. Well, it is a compact camera, bordering on ultra compact. The flash is weak, and there are very few instances the photos benefit from its use. For the most part I disable it. It isn't really an issue with this camera, however, rather an issue with this segment of cameras.