The IXUS 310 HS / ELPH 500 HS shares the same 'choc-ice' styling of earlier wide-screen IXUS / ELPH designs, and our brown testimonial sample made the analogy more fitting. It's additionally available in gold, silver and pink. At 185 grams including the card and battery it's no lightweight, however fits conveniently in your hand and jacket, if not being quite shirt-pocket sized. Unlike the Sony Cyber-shot TX10 you can't take it in the water and at the time of composing there was no undersea real estate available - a minimum of not from Canon anyhow.
The IXUS 310 HS / ELPH 500 HS continues the trend for Canon touch-screen compacts to shun physical controls. There's an on/off button and a two-position mode turn on the top panel and a playback button on the rear; aside from the huge round shutter release button and its zoom collar that's it for physical controls.
The rear panel is taken up almost totally by the screen, with a small ridged panel on the right which provides a very effective thumb rest - this is a comfy camera to hold and run. With a 16:9 aspect ratio, the screen is preferably fit to HD video recording, although black upright bars appear down the side for still shooting in the native 4:3 component ratio. The absence of a video 'mode' (you press a record screen icon to start shooting video in any stills mode) means you need to frame up your shot in 4:3, the camera then changing to the 16:9 view when recording beginnings. If you find you're shooting more video than stills you will most likely set the element still photo ratio to 16:9, but you have to bear in mind to switch it back unless you're happy with 16:9 stills with a cropped resolution of 4000 x 2248, or simply over 8 Megapixels.
To look at, the display is a joy. With 460k pixels, images look clear and crisp and the seeing angle is nice and wide both horizontally and vertically, so even when held above your head you can quickly compose shots. The touch-screen doesn't feel as receptive as some of the earlier touch-screen IXUS models I've examined though. I had to push rather firmly for the screen to respond and flicking through menu options didn't have the same natural feel as it does on my iPhone for instance. The touch functions are enhanced by tap controls throughout playback and I personally found it a great deal much easier to tap the side of the camera to advance playback as opposed to swiping the display.
Touch-icon controls are organized in the black upright disrobe either side of the screen. These consist of shooting mode, video recording, flash and self-timer controls along with Canon's quick-access 'Func' menu. What's consisted of below is completely customisable so you will most likely configure the display to include pretty much anything you desire as long as there's space, and if it gets a bit cluttered there's a display icon that makes it all disappear.
The built-in flash has a max quoted range of 5 metres which is rather reasonable, it's additionally quick to reuse, especially when shooting close subjects when the power is instantly reduced. Less impressive is thetThe IXUS 310 HS / ELPH 500 HS's battery life - around 180 shots from the completely charged NB-6L Lithium Ion battery.
The combined battery and card compartment is found behind a door on the underside of the camera and takes SD (HC and XC variations) and MMC (MMCplus and HCMMCplus versions) cards. An additional door on the right side of the camera opens to disclose mini HDMI and A/V / USB out ports.
The IXUS 310 HS / ELPH 500 HS continues the trend for Canon touch-screen compacts to shun physical controls. There's an on/off button and a two-position mode turn on the top panel and a playback button on the rear; aside from the huge round shutter release button and its zoom collar that's it for physical controls.
The rear panel is taken up almost totally by the screen, with a small ridged panel on the right which provides a very effective thumb rest - this is a comfy camera to hold and run. With a 16:9 aspect ratio, the screen is preferably fit to HD video recording, although black upright bars appear down the side for still shooting in the native 4:3 component ratio. The absence of a video 'mode' (you press a record screen icon to start shooting video in any stills mode) means you need to frame up your shot in 4:3, the camera then changing to the 16:9 view when recording beginnings. If you find you're shooting more video than stills you will most likely set the element still photo ratio to 16:9, but you have to bear in mind to switch it back unless you're happy with 16:9 stills with a cropped resolution of 4000 x 2248, or simply over 8 Megapixels.
To look at, the display is a joy. With 460k pixels, images look clear and crisp and the seeing angle is nice and wide both horizontally and vertically, so even when held above your head you can quickly compose shots. The touch-screen doesn't feel as receptive as some of the earlier touch-screen IXUS models I've examined though. I had to push rather firmly for the screen to respond and flicking through menu options didn't have the same natural feel as it does on my iPhone for instance. The touch functions are enhanced by tap controls throughout playback and I personally found it a great deal much easier to tap the side of the camera to advance playback as opposed to swiping the display.
Touch-icon controls are organized in the black upright disrobe either side of the screen. These consist of shooting mode, video recording, flash and self-timer controls along with Canon's quick-access 'Func' menu. What's consisted of below is completely customisable so you will most likely configure the display to include pretty much anything you desire as long as there's space, and if it gets a bit cluttered there's a display icon that makes it all disappear.
The built-in flash has a max quoted range of 5 metres which is rather reasonable, it's additionally quick to reuse, especially when shooting close subjects when the power is instantly reduced. Less impressive is thetThe IXUS 310 HS / ELPH 500 HS's battery life - around 180 shots from the completely charged NB-6L Lithium Ion battery.
The combined battery and card compartment is found behind a door on the underside of the camera and takes SD (HC and XC variations) and MMC (MMCplus and HCMMCplus versions) cards. An additional door on the right side of the camera opens to disclose mini HDMI and A/V / USB out ports.
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