I purchased the canon powershot s500 digital elph last March. I kept getting blurry pictures so I called Canon technical support. They went through the whole procedure to make sure my camera was all set up. Well I followed their directions but everything was the way it should have been. So they said I should send it in because there was obviously a problem with it. Then I sent it in and had to pay for the shipping there. They sent it back and said they had switched out some optical thing. Well I just finally went to get my pictures developed and they all have the same problem. They never fixed the problem. Mind you this was the approximately 9 months of my son's life before the age of 2. I called tech support and ended up having to wait more than 24 hours for a call back from a supervisor. She said they would send me pre paid envelope to check out the camera. Well I was greatful and had to tell her that during babysitting in late August a little boy had dropped my camera so there was damage to the outside part of the camera, but it did not effect the quality of the pictures because they were the same as prior to the day it was dropped. She said that they would probably not cover it due to the fact that it might have been caused by the dropped camera. I told I have proof of when it happened and that the pictures prior to that date are coming in blurry just like it was before I sent it in the first time. I started to cry that my son's 9 months are all ruined and she was practically laughing when I got off the phone. The camera is worse than a disposable camera. Don't waste your time or money on this piece of junk. I recommend Olympus. My Olympus prior to this was only 3 megapixels and was better quality than this piece of junk. I am planning on contacting the Better Business Bureau regarding this matter. Please don't waste your time on this, like I have to! I hope this helps people make better choices! Good luck! I wish someone could have forecasted this for me!
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Canon never disappoints!
I've just upgraded from a Canon A50, after toting it around for the past 4 years and putting it through loads of abuse. I've recommended Canon digital cameras to everyone I know and I've yet to hear a complaint. This camera was EVEN SMALLER than expected...easily HALF the size of my A50! They are not joking when they say it is the size of a deck of cards. Especially since my reason for upgrading was to have a small, yet powerful digital that I can carry along in a waist pack when I run the Honolulu Marathon next week.My limited tests can be seen in the customer image library above, but I am sufficiently impressed to write my review immediately. I did make sure to buy a new camera rather than a refurbished model because I did have two problems with my old Canon, which required the 1-year warranty (you only get 90 days with refurbished). Since the repairs on that old camera, I've not had a problem in the last 3.5 years...despite dropping it a few too many times. The S500 has the same solid construction and aluminum casing, which should also protect it from mild abuse from its owner (I'd also recommend getting a nice little neoprene case for it...they may not always be pretty, but they're amazing protection!).I've not had enough experience yet with it to speak about its battery life, but from past experience, Canons have better than average battery life, which I extend even further by limiting the use of the LCD screen. This models battery isn't much larger than a compact flash card, so I'm interested to see if it's as reliable as their other rechargable batteries. They did one major improvement in the battery charger that is worth noting...it doesn't have a cord. Much like the Apple Powerbook power cord, it has the prongs that fold out for charging and fold in for storage. Such a nice, tidy design for something that is normally cumbersome.I have my degree in photography from Art Center in Pasadena, CA, so I feel qualified to give two solid thumbs up to this camera. It's not professional grade, of course, and any camera with a built-in flash can often give you red-eye or harsh shadows, but it's perfect for snapshots, vacation photos, ebay shots and having fun without carrying around a ton of equipment. It seems that most digitals do their job best when you just use the flash as fill, rather than your only light source...or better yet, turn the flash off and let the ambient light do its job. I know this one has quite a few manual override functions for shutter speeds and such, but I haven't had time to explore them very much yet.My last suggestion would be to get a very large compact flash card in addition to the one that the camera comes with. I purchased a 1GB Ultra 2 from Sandisk (I found one for about $80), and it's very fast and will hold well over 100 uncompressed images. That will keep you from fiddling around with multiple cards when you're out and about. I felt a bit frivilous when I first ordered it, but now I am very happy I did.
