Canon PowerShot ELPH 510 HS

12.10 Megapixels	12.00x zoom	3.2 inch LCD

Canon PowerShot 510 HS Overview

Posted: 08/23/2011

The Canon 510 HS takes over from last year's SD4500 IS as the flagship model in the company's ELPH lineup. The Canon ELPH series is aimed at fashion-conscious photographers who want a very pocket-friendly camera with good image quality first and foremost, and are willing to forgo some of the creative controls found on cameras aimed at experienced photographers. As the new flagship model, the PowerShot 510 HS has some important updates over its predecessor, including a more powerful lens that still allows an impressively slim body, and the addition of a touch-screen interface.

The new lens selected for the Canon PowerShot 510 HS offers focal lengths from a useful 28mm wide angle to a powerful 336mm telephoto, enough to cover most everything the typical photographer will need, whether shooting indoors or trying to frame a more distant subject. What's particularly impressive about the new lens, though, is its size. Canon is billing it as the world's thinnest 12x optical zoom with a 28mm wide angle, and slim it is indeed: the 510 HS is just 0.9 inches (23mm) thick. Where the 510 HS will comfortably slip in your pocket, an interchangeable-lens camera would typically need at least a couple of lenses to cover the same focal lengths, and a small camera bag to carry the extra lens.

The PowerShot 510's lens offers a maximum aperture that varies from f/3.4 to f/5.9 across the zoom range, and includes image stabilization with updated algorithms. Stabilization is particularly important in a camera like this, given the powerful telephoto reach possible with its lens. Without it, you'd want a shutter speed of at least 1/320 second to handhold a shot at the telephoto end of the 510's zoom lens. Canon says that its latest-generation image stabilization system analyzes the shooting environment, then automatically chooses from one of six different scene types such as macro, and optimizes the shake reduction system accordingly. We're still awaiting specifics on exactly what tweaks are made in the various scene types, and the degree of correction possible, but every little improvement will count.

Compared to the SD4500 IS, the other main difference in the Canon 510 HS is its addition of a touch-screen LCD panel that's both larger and higher-resolution than the touchless panel of the earlier camera. The size increase is only slight, stepping from a 3.0-inch screen to a new 3.2-inch panel with a wide aspect ratio. The step forwards in resolution is much more significant, with Canon doubling the total pixel count to approximately 154,000 pixels (461,000 dots), versus a 77,000 pixel (230,000 dot) panel in the SD4500. The addition of a touch-screen overlay on the LCD allows it to be used not only as an output device, but also as an intuitive method of controlling the camera.

Canon has boosted image sensor resolution just slightly in the PowerShot 510, stepping up two megapixels for an effective resolution of 12 megapixels. Output from the 510's image sensor is processed by the same DIGIC 4 image processor as in the SD4500. The Canon 510 HS can also detect several additional scene types in its Smart AUTO mode, compared to the earlier camera. Where the SD4500 could select from one of 28 scene types in Smart AUTO shooting, the 510 now has an additional four modes, which we understand all rely on the camera's ability to track motion of non-human subjects. Like its predecessor, the Canon 510 HS can capture video at up to Full HD (1,920 x 1,080 pixel, aka 1080p) resolution.

Physically, the Canon PowerShot 510 HS is ever so slightly smaller than the SD4500 IS, with the same thickness and height, but just slightly less width. (Precise dimensions are 3.9 x 2.3 x 0.9 inches, or 99 x 58 x 23mm.) Body weight has increased by a noticeable 10%, to 7.4 ounces including battery and Secure Digital flash card. (As well as standard SD or MultiMediaCard media, it's compatible with the latest higher capacity SDHC and SDXC types.) Like its predecessor, the Canon 510HS runs on a proprietary lithium ion rechargeable battery pack, although we don't yet know if it's the same model as used in the previous camera.

The Canon 510 HS will be available in silver, red, or black-bodied variants from October 2011. Pricing in the US market is set at around US$350, unchanged from the earlier camera.

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