Sony P200 or Canon sd500 (ixus 700)

[Justinian]

Well, there is another issue to consider and this is what dissuaded me from purchasing the SD500 once and for all: broken LCD's that Canon charges $150.00+ to repair. I don't care how cool the SD500 is or how great its image quality; I would not want to risk having the LCD fracture and there were many complaints about this happening on the dcresource.com Canon forum. Another issue with the SD500 is a sort of whining sound when the movie mode is on.Again, many complaints about that too. So I went with the P-200 and I could not be happier: $150.00 less expensive than the Canon, great image quality, speed, protected LCD and ultracompact and unusual design. I don't mind paying a little extra for memory sticks for the peace of mind I feel now. :|

[PicGuy]

Justinian wrote:

Well, there is another issue to consider and this is what dissuaded me from purchasing the SD500 once and for all: broken LCD's that Canon charges $150.00+ to repair. I don't care how cool the SD500 is or how great its image quality; I would not want to risk having the LCD fracture and there were many complaints about this happening on the dcresource.com Canon forum. Another issue with the SD500 is a sort of whining sound when the movie mode is on.Again, many complaints about that too. So I went with the P-200 and I could not be happier: $150.00 less expensive than the Canon, great image quality, speed, protected LCD and ultracompact and unusual design. I don't mind paying a little extra for memory sticks for the peace of mind I feel now. :|

Don't forget that tha P200 has manual shutter/aperture and preset focus controls. Features lacking on the SD500 that I find extremely useful. I agree with you though, the value of the P200's thick LCD protector can't be underestimated.

[darntoothysam]

Broken LCDs are a HUGE pain.. but you can get them for many models here:

http://www.huroncamera.com

Im not sure if they have the SD500 yet, but the SD300/200 (same LCD) is $65 if I remember correctly.

[Erics]

No stick assist on the P200 and no panoramic software is included? I was leaning towards the P200, but I take panoramics fairly often - arg!!! You can get 3rd party panoramic software, but I found the 1 or 2 that I tried inferior to the SW included with my Olympus camera (which only works with Olympus images).

[TCB]

Does the LCD on the Sony P200 "Gain" up in low light?

[PicGuy]

Yes, it does. Sometimes it does it only when the shutter button is pressed down half way and sometimes it does it without pressing it. I haven't quite figured out what condition actually make it gain up. I can confirm that it does do it.

TCB wrote:

Does the LCD on the Sony P200 "Gain" up in low light?

[ftahir]

Sony P200 have issue with the flash make sure you check it out.

[qball]

Flash seems ok. Only problem I ran into is

1 metering is set wrong in M.

2 battery amount unusually affects flash power

It can be an incorrect unit. Needs a checkout (of 1&2)

[dalesman]

TCB wrote:

Does the LCD on the Sony P200 "Gain" up in low light?

I'm not sure that the P200 display does "gain up" - can't find any mention of this in the official specs.

I think the "gaining up" effect, sometimes noticed when half-pressing the shutter, is probably due to the Focus-assist lamp firing and brightening up the subject for a short time.

Regards