Canon’s point and shoot digital cameras have many features to recommend them. Among the most important is the intelligent design of the controls. Critical things like exposure compensation, white balance, and flash status can be altered intuitively. The single setting I change most often is probably ISO (the sensitivity of the sensor). You want it to be as low as possible (to avoid graininess) but high enough to avoid blur from subject or camera shake. If you are working in changing light conditions, this is a balance that changes all the time.
One neat thing I discovered is that the A570 lets you program one of the buttons to be a one-touch shortcut to something you do very often. To do so, follow these steps:
- Turn the camera on and put it in photo shooting mode
- Press the Menu button
- Scroll all the way down to “Set X button…” (where X is a picture of a printer)
- Press FUNC / SET
- Choose from among: ISO speed (my choice), white balance, digital teleconverter (useless), display grid overlay, and display off
- Press FUNC / SET
Now, pressing the button in the upper right corner below the printer icon becomes a quick shortcut to whichever you do most often. It might only save a fraction of a second each time, but it amounts to a very worthwhile convenience in the long run.
See also: Hacking a Canon digicam