On the Trail with the Canon SD500

Using the 7.1 MP Digital Elph in The Needles District and Havasupai Tribal Lands

By Christopher Lindley
May 2005
I recently bought what will probably be my general-use lens:  The 24-70mm f/2.8L. If you were restricted to one lens, this zoom wide-angle telephoto should be good for most situations. It might be, for example, be the lens you'd choose to take backpacking, except for one problem: it weighs over 2 lbs. Tack on your camera, tripod, batteries, cases and what-have-you, and before you realize it, you're packing nearly 10 pounds of camera gear.

A backpacking friend recently showed off his new camera set-up:  One of these "ultra-compact" digital point-and-shoots, and a table-top tripod. I suspect the whole setup weighed-in at about 8 ounces. Because a backpacking trip was imminent, and as I'd often thought about getting one of the cute Canon Elph models to just carry around, I thought I'd take the plunge with Canon's new 7.1 megapixel SD500. Add two 1,000 MB SD memory cards, and off we go!
Move your cursor over the images to view!

Must have javascript enabled
Now, the SD500 has about 1 MB more resolution than my rapidly aging D60 SLR. But, it has, as you might expect for a "consumer" camera, almost none of the creative-control the SLR user is accustomed to. No user-configurable f-stop or shutter speeds (although there is a long-shutter mode). Instead, it has "Special Scene Modes":  Portrait. Beach.  Snow. Fireworks. Foliage. Foliage? Yeah, we veteran SLR users Just Don't Get It.
You couldn't have fireworks anywhere I was going, and there was no snow, so I used the camera's manual mode. This allowed me to set the white balance, ISO speed, and metering (Evaluative, Center-weighted Average, or Spot), but little else. Several times I tried blurring water by doing the "long-shutter" mode, but even though my ISO setting was at 50, the metering was always too bright.

On the positive side, I truly enjoyed being able to carry this around and not really have to think about it. Its small size, though, is also a liability:  I'm not looking forward to the first time I drop this tiny camera on the rocks. Its startup speed and response (write times) are remarkable. I also liked that it displayed a histogram. The image quality - at least as viewed on a monitor - somehow seems lacking from the D60 (armed with it's $1,000 lenses). However, the proof is in the print, and these can be as stunning as those shot with the SLR. I have to admit I'd be hard-pressed saying which images came from what camera.

Perhaps with time the lack of exposure control with the SD500 won't bug me. Right now, though, I have NO confidence that I took the shot I thought I took. Somehow, with an SLR, I've developed confidence in the camera's ability to capture the image I intended.
Images from around the Needles District.
A Killer Ten-day Trip
This was my third spring trip to the Needles district in Canyonlands National Park in as many years. With every trip, I grow more fond of the area. Increasingly, this is not a place you can expect to drop in on a weekend, unannounced, and expect to get a backcountry camping permit.  Your options are better, though, if you have a high-clearance 4WD at your disposal. So with my Jeep, I was able to spend the first two nights in the Davis and Lavender Canyon areas - and no one else was there. In my opinion, these two canyons are not as impressive as, say, Salt Creek, but you still won't be bored, by any means.

The final night was spend in a regular campsite in the main part of the park. I discovered that my nervousness about exposure (that is, heights) needn't be confined to Peekaboo Trail, as I've described before. I crossed over from Squaw Valley to Lost Valley and Big Spring Valleys; and more than once I wondered whether the folks in our National Park Service were entirely sane. Yes, there's nothing like a near-death experience (or two, or three) to really give your vacation the edge it needs.
Havasupai Waterfalls: Havasu, Mooney, Beaver, and Navajo.
(clockwise from upper left)
A rendezvous with a friend followed, where the most tragic event of the trip occurred:  I managed to break open a 1/2 gallon glass container of Moab Brewery's Scorpion Ale on Monticello's main street. Sigh. So we instead had to settle for Polygamy Porter ("Why Have Just One?").

And on to the Havasupai Tribal Lands, in Arizona. I'm not going to go into detail about the area; I'd simply be repeating the numerous accounts already on the web (helpful information can be found here and here). I will say that this is certainly one of those places that a photograph simply can't capture:  You're missing the shouts of kids trying to be heard over the roar of the waterfalls, the smells of village life, and the constantly changing canyon light. This is a classic hike, and arguably one of the most beautiful spots on the planet. Consequently, it's quite popular: I've heard that religious organizations sometimes travel there, perhaps hopeful that the scene will encourage conversion. Indeed, it's hard to imagine that this isn't heaven on earth.

God perturbed this water with just one tweak from which a number of effects naturally follow:  It has a high calcium-carbonate content, keeping the pH high, the bug life low, and ultimately the formation of blue-green travertine-lined lagoons along the falls, and which continute all the way downstream. It flows at about 28,000 gallons-per-minute at 70°F. Amazing.

I had heard that there were photographers with their tripods in the water at Navajo falls; and several times I'd wished I'd had something more than the point-and-shoot. Ah, to do a hyperfocal shot of Navajo...with no dumb "foliage" setting....