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Compact and lightweight SLR that can shoot movies too
Coming after its Eos 450D, Canon’s Eos 500D SLR offers 15-megapixel still images and ‘Full HD’ resolution (1,920x1,080 pixel) movie clips.
That’s better on paper than Nikon’s D5000 and D90 cameras, but falls just short of what’s offered by Canon’s own pro-level Eos 5D Mark II at its best.
That impressive specification aside, though, the 500D is an easy to use model aimed at the masses, which makes its £870 body-only price – dictated by fluctuating exchange rates – hard to understand. Better value for beginners is the bundle that includes an 18-55mm zoom lens for just £100 more.
Cost aside, the 500D appears to have everything amateur photographers want, and more. There’s an HDMI port for connecting the camera up to a flat-panel TV, light sensitivity of ISO 12800, plus the ability to use the 3in screen on its rear for picture composition and review instead of using the optical viewfinder. This larger screen helps with manual focusing, whether for stills or video.
There is a top-mounted mode dial for changing settings, with icons familiar to compact camera users. There are fully automatic choices for common scenes and subjects, allowing beginners to point and shoot at first and experiment with more professional options - such as aperture priority, shutter priority and full manual control - as their confidence grows.
Even with a lens attached, the 500D is a camera that can be carried around all day without inducing an ache in the user’s arms. Build quality is impressive, and there’s enough of a moulded grip to comfortably get the requisite number of fingers and thumbs around.
Though you’ll need plenty of room on your computer’s hard disk to store the large files it generates, video clips from the 500D were colourful and clear, and stills sharp and crisp. That said, with the 18-55mm lens attached we noticed softening of detail and barrel distortion (a slight curvature) towards the corners of the frame on its fullest wide-angle setting.
Still, this is nitpicking: if you want Full HD video on a digital SLR, the Canon 500D is currently the least expensive way to get it.
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Easy to use, responsive, lightweight and compact DSLR with much to recommend apart from its price Good points Full HD video plus crisp photos; fast to respond; simple to use; lightweight but robust Bad points Sound on video is mono-only; movie frame rate only 20fps; expensive, particularly if you need to buy the lens as well
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Canon EOS 500D
I recently purchased the Canon EOS 500D. I purchased this camera with both the EF-S 18-55 IS and the EF-S 18-200 IS lens. The reason for this was because I pre-orderes the kit which came with a gadget bag and an 8gb sdhc card and the 18-200 lens. Because it seemed that the kit that I had actually ordered was not going to be available for some time, the dealer did a very good deal by also including two uv filters, an extra battery and extended the warranty to three years. All for £200.00 less than my original pre-order price. This made the price considerably cheaper than the recommended price. In fact if you shop around there is some very good deals to be had which makes the EOD 500D a good purchase for the price. The camera with the 18-55 lens is I think very light but the 18-200 lens is considerably heavier. I have used this camera on various kinds of situations in order to give it an all round try out. I am what can be described as above a novice but a long way from being an expert and I found the camera very easy to get on with once I had learnt what all the various knobs and buttons do. The build is very good and solid even though it appears to be plastic but not at all flimsy in any way. The quality of both photo and video are, in my opinion, very good indeed. The Camera comes with a good software package which allows for a multitude of tasks. My only complaint is the lack of an external mike socket as I found the built in mike to be 'wanting'. Apart from that I am very happy indeed and would have no problem in recommending the 500D to anyone even to someone like myself with limited photographic knowledge.
Posted by Colin Watson, 24 May 2009