O.K. Pay attention, because I'm only going to say this once (offspring pay special attention)!

This is the geek gadget I have to, need to, want to get for Father's Day. Are you listening out there?

When the folks at Canon asked me to play with their new PowerShot Digital Elph SD500 ($500) and their Selphy CP400 photo printer ($169), I yawned and agreed, thinking they would be similar to all the other cameras and photo printers that pass through here.

Boy was I wrong!

Canon PowerShot Digital Elph SD500

The camera is what you'd expect from Canon, sleek, with all the controls within easy access of your fingers and extremely easy to use. And I didn't even need to check the manual to set up the printer, which is something geeks are reluctant to do in any case.

Every photo I took was crisp and clear and the prints were what we commonly expect from Canon 35mm cameras.

Some of the key features of the camera include:

• It's the first 7.1 megapixel Digital Elph with a 3x optical zoom lens.
• It has Canon's DIGIC II image processor, which delivers high speed, quality prints.
• There are nine scene modes and an enhanced movie mode.
• You can customize colors while shooting.
• It will print directly to the new Canon CP printers.

Canon Selphy CP400 photo printer

The printer is small enough to carry in your average camera case. All you need to do is plug it in, pop in special paper, attach the camera to its USB port and hit print on the camera.

Of course, ideally, the camera and printer are made to work together, with the camera sensing when it's attached to the printer's USB port. But it will also work with virtually any camera on the market and can also be connected to your computer.

Other features include:

• It gives you "credit card" size prints in about 40 seconds and "postcard size" prints in 81 seconds.
• You can select either borderless or bordered prints.
• It weighs only 28.9 ounces.
• You can print on a wide variety of papers, ranging from labels to four-by-eight inches.

Like most printers of this type, it makes one pass for each color, but it then coats the paper to protect it, unlike other "dye-sublimation" printers.

More information on the camera and printer can be found at www.canonusa.com.

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