Comments about Canon Powershot 500 HS Digital ELPH Camera (Brown):

I bought this camera at the suggestion of my Uncle who is somewhere between an amateur and professional photographer. I picked out three that I liked and he told me which of them was best. I mostly use this camera to take candid photos of friends and family to print out and scrapbook or post on facebook. I haven't taken too many pictures yet, but the ones I have taken look great.

Comments about Canon Powershot 500 HS Digital ELPH Camera (Brown):

I used the Canon 500 HS for about 3 weeks travelling around India. Most of the photos were taken outdoors and I performed my usual indoor tests in available light (flash off).I found the touchscreen -- one of the key features of this digicam -- quite enjoyable. Moving through the options is a breeze, although using your fingernail rather than a fingertip gets better results for specific changes.
Pros
Fast f/2 lens
Good 1080 HD video
Very good low light performance
excellent photo quality for its class and a nice mix of shooting modes.

Cons
Bulkier, heavier than average
24 fps videos a bit jerky
Sluggish 1.6 fps burst mode at best quality
Touchscreen is not as sensitive as smartphones, so it takes some time to get used to it

Comments about Canon Powershot 500 HS Digital ELPH Camera (Brown):

I use this camera for work events where I don't want to lug around a huge camera. Most of our events are indoors and this does great indoor photos without having to worry about adjusting exposure. The greatest thing about this camera is its ease of use - anyone in the office can grab it and use it without having to know about f-stops and shutter speeds. Only thing I wish is that the zoom was better, but overall very happy with the camera.

Comments about Canon Powershot 500 HS Digital ELPH Camera (Brown):

I really like this camera. I've had many point-and-shoots and this is the best by far. The touch screen is easier to use than I expected and it takes phenomenal photos. I use this for lots of different kinds of shots and am really impressed. It doesn't have an extremely long zoom and for some reason Canon didn't put photo merge on this for panoramas. But other than that this camera is absolutely perfect!

Comments about Canon Powershot 500 HS Digital ELPH Camera (Brown):

I opened the package and started shootin' really good, HD pixs and videos! great sound! Clean Clear pictures.
Then, I put it in my pocket and instantly dimpled the lens cover. Doesn't open and close 'nice!' anymore. I'm not going to return it, but, that was a quick change from brand new to "used."
GET A CAMERA CASE ALONG WITH THE CAMERA!
But, it stinks to need a case with a point and shoot.

Comments about Canon Powershot 500 HS Digital ELPH Camera (Brown):

I use this as "party camera", as I don't want to carry my D2Xs or D700 always with me. This Canon is an amazing camera with great image quality. I bought it as replacement of my Powershot SD3500, it's little heavier and tiny bit thicker and zoom is down from 5x to 4.4x, but it's CMOS, F2.0 aperture, full HD video and Av Tv shooting modes. Love the camera and I can't be happier. Touchscreen is great, same as on the SD3500, but better setup of buttons around, especially the "play" button by the screen is better then on top like it was before.

Comments about Canon Powershot 500 HS Digital ELPH Camera (Brown):

I'm not a professional photographer but using snapshops a lot for various purpose.

So I used several point of shot cameras. Fuji(1), Nikon(1), Olympus(1), Canon(2), Panasonic(1) these are my point of shot camers bought.

Canon PS 500 HS is the latest model I bought because its spec is very attractive.

24mm wide angle with f/2.0 aperture was perfect when I took shots in the dark auditorium. Great indoor picture and greater outdoor.

4.4 zoom is enough for me. I think more than 5 zoom is waste in point of shot camera.

HD movie shots are almost as same quality as professional video camera with zooming function while taking a movie shot (my previous Canon model does not have zooming function while taking a movie shot).

Sound recording is not sensitive enough but it is a camera not a video recorder anyway. You should not expect live orchestra sounds.

And imbedded mini HDMI port allows me direct connect to HDTV to see the movie (no need transferring to computer).

Super slow motion is not tested yet because I found it while I writing this comment, but I'm sure it would be great.

Touch screen menu was a little bit confusing at first but soon I could manage it, not a pain.

When my neice saw my gadget, she asked me to buy it for her, so I bought another one within a week. And she was so excited

And my daughter in law, medical doctor, quested her where she bought it. I have plan to buy another one for her birthday present.

The only cons I say is, it is comparatively heavy. My wife says it is a little bit heavy to put in her handbag.

But I don't care, because it is MY stuff.

I recommend to buy extra genuine canon battery, not a cheap one, because I have an experience that cheap one is cheap.

Mini HDMI cable is optional, but I bought it and found it convinient.

Comments about Canon Powershot 500 HS Digital ELPH Camera (Brown):

I was looking for a camera that I can carry easily and has good quality of pictures at same time.
I searched for many different cameras and this one caught my eyes.
I purchased one has really long range of shot, but the quality is not great.
I had a good experience with B&H and I ordered the item from here.
I want to listing some of good points of this camera.
Pros:
- Light and compact
- best quality of pictures! (f2.0 makes a huge differences)
- Has many effects in camera and no need PhotoShop.
- It catches a desired point on its screen even I move the camera.
Cons:
- Touch Screen, many of people will like this camera has full touch screen, but I rather wanted to have regular screen. But regardless this function, I like this camera so much.

Comments about Canon Powershot 500 HS Digital ELPH Camera (Brown):

It takes clear, detailed high quality photos in most common environmental situations with intuitive controls for special situations like night, fireworks, beach, sunsets, etc. It is lightweight but well built.

Comments about Canon Powershot 500 HS Digital ELPH Camera (Brown):

I love it!

The touch screen is amazing and very responsive. Kids and Pets mode makes capturing movement simple. Colors are well represented. This is a nice pocket sized complement to our T2i. We took pictures and videos over three days and four shows on a single charge. It was our daughter's first figure skating show. The lighting was soft and pink, but the pictures still turned out great.

Comments about Canon Powershot 500 HS Digital ELPH Camera (Brown):

Very Sharp Images. Great video. Menu is a big improvment..love the tap to move picture function
Really good image in low light...probably best point and shoot in this price range..improved battery life

Comments about Canon Powershot 500 HS Digital ELPH Camera (Brown):

I use the camera for family snapshots and HD family video. The f/2.0 aperture with the very wide angle lens (equal to 24mm on old 35mm cameras) and a pretty decent looking 800 ISO all come together to allow for good low light portraits of the family using only ambient light. In fact the lens at its widest setting is so wide it distorts noticeably in close-up portraits, but I can zoom in a little to shoot head and shoulders portraits without much lens distortion at f/2.8 aperture. With my old video camera, I could never back far enough away from my family when indoors to get all the action in frame, but this lens at widest angle is perfect for video in cramped quarters, or to capture a lot of background and take advantage of the full HD widescreen perspective. And the stereo microphone sounds pretty darn good in headphones considering the entire camera fits in the palm of my hand! My only complaint about video on this camera (and all of the cameras in this class) is that I can't make +/- adjustments to exposure (when shooting movies), so I get blown out faces shooting video against very dark backgrounds and the opposite with very bright backgrounds. For still images however, exposure adjustment is a breeze. In fact, all of the touch-screen adjustments are easy. There is only one physical button on the rear of the camera, leaving lots of real-estate for a huge, bright and colorful touch screen. I bought the camera for the lens and thought the touch screen might be annoying. But I think the touch screen might be one of the best features of the camera. I tend to be a reader of manuals, but with this camera I just started playing with the touch screen and finding my way around intuitively. I love the face recognition focusing. And when there isn't a face, (or isn't a face that will cooperate and look at the camera!) I love the ability to touch the screen on the part of the scene I want in focus and the camera keeps track of that spot and focuses on it! I like to set the shooting mode to Av and set the aperture wide open and turn the flash off and leave it there. I discovered that in bright outdoor light, the camera has a built-in ND (neutral density) filter to allow shooting when the brightness exceeds the speed capability of the shutter and allowed me to shoot a bright beach scene portrait wide open at f/2.0. In "my colors", I set the sharpening the the highest setting, turned down saturation a notch and turned up contrast a notch and leave it there for everything. Auto ISO works well and so does auto white balance. My other camera is a T2i (a 20D before that) and I'm used to shooting with manual controls in RAW mode. No point and shoot can compare to a good DSLR with a good prime lens. But this is a very compact, attractive (especially in brown) and capable point and shoot.