Canon's EOS 500D is a great addition to its collection of mid-range digital SLRs.  The new camera is well-built, with a 15 Megapixel CMOS sensor, a large 3'', 920 000 pixel screen and HD video.  

The model that we tested was a preview, so we can't draw any firm conclusions, but it certainly gives a good preview of what we can expect from the 500D.

Handling

It's hard to avoid comparing the 500D with its predecessor, the 450D.  The basic structure of the two cameras is identical, and they are almost exactly the same size.  What has changed, though, is Canon's choice of materials.  While the 450D sometimes felt a little lightweight, the 500D is a more serious proposition, and we liked the new, more comfortable grip, which makes handling the camera much easier.

In general, the interface is much the same, with only a few small changes in the camera's controls.  The white balance control, for instance, has moved to the four-way control joystick, leaving room for the record button.  At the same time, the click wheel at the top of the camera now gives direct access to video mode.  Both of these modifications make it easier to switch between taking still photos and recording video, one of the key new features of the 500D.

We would have welcomed some more significant changes, such as adding a second scroll wheel on the back of the camera.  The ISO control is at the front of the grip, meaning it can quickly adapt to ambient light conditions, even if reaching it isn't very easy.


Although the 450D also had a 3'' screen, the 500D now has a VGA resolution of 640 x 480 pixels, which is much easier on the eye.  Using the menus is much easier, and photos appear sharper.  Two proximity sensors automatically turn the screen off when you bring the viewfinder up to your eye to save battery life and avoid distractions.

Focusing has changed little either with manual focusing still a treat.  The mirrors producing a nice bright image in the viewfinder that's a pleasant 0.87 x version of what's falling on the sensor.  

The same nine-point autofocus system struggled a little in some of tests, in particularly on still-life scenes.  We found that we had to take the same shot several times, sometimes abandoning contrast-detection autofocus and just focusing manually.  Hopefully the production version of the 500D will resolve some of these problems.  

In LiveView mode, where the shot you're about to take is represented on the screen rather than in the viewfinder, autofocus is not much faster than on the 450D.  Despite the inclusion of face detection, the contrast detection that forms the basis of Canon's autofocus is too slow for everyday use and is best-suited to indoor environments.    When the autofocus is based on phase detection, instead, the 500D performs much better, even in low light.  

Image Quality

The sensor on the 500D isn't quite the same as the one on the 50D, which was faster and with a powerful set of microlenses.  Nevertheless, the test shots we took with our prototype 500D were pretty impressive.  Electronic interference is well-handled right up to 1600 ISO, and you can certainly make use of photos taken at 3200 ISO.  Above that, at 6400 ISO and 12800 ISO should be used with more caution, with noticeable blurriness and several coloured pixels.

Such high settings are a welcome addition, though, and are useful in low light and work well for black and white.

For the most part, having a 15 Megapixel sensor is more a marketing coup than a surefire sign of better quality photos.  Indeed, taking such high-resolution snaps can be counter-productive, as it can lead to JPEGs that are anywhere from 4 to 11 MB and RAW files of up to 30 MB.  Saved at a colour depth of 14 bits, these huge RAW files should, in theory, produce excellent images, but it's hard to see a real improvement in most photos.

Some useful auto correction systems are available, which picks out more details in darker areas at the expense of a slight loss of overall contrast.


The lens that ships with the 500D (a 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6 IS) is already available and well-known.  It's the same lens that comes with the 450D and gives great quality photos for the price.  Photos are nice and sharp and the optical stabilization is excellent.

New on the 500D is an automatic correction for vignetting caused by a large range of lenses, but Canon is yet to develop a system to account for the various chromatic distortions that various lenses are known to produce.

One final point to note is that the 500D comes with a very complete set of software which allows you handle RAW files, organize your photos and remotely control the camera itself.