3. Exposure: Take Your Pick!

Once you switch out of full-auto ("green") mode, you have many choices. First are the four standard exposure modes: program, shutter-speed priority, aperture priority, and manual. The camera also features specific scene modes, including basic applications like portrait and landscape, and special ones accessible via a menu. These are pretty similar to what the competition offers, but here there's also an underwater mode thrown in - just don't forget the waterproof case! Pretty much everything you could reasonably expect seems to be here.

In aperture priority mode, you can stop down to f/8, which is a reasonable value given the size of the sensor; smaller apertures would result in blurring due to diffraction. Shutter speeds range from 15 seconds to 1/2500s, which pretty much covers all standard needs.

Metering uses the usual three modes - matrix, center-weighted, and spot - with various options. Certain of these selections can lead to major exposure errors, especially in spot mode, so if you're a newcomer to digital photography, stick with matrix or center-weighted mode.

The sensor can be set to sensitivities of ISO 50 to 400. Naturally, the more you increase the sensitivity, the more noise you get in the image. All of the necessary settings for white balance are available, and a custom setting is also possible, for adapting to specific situations.

Added to all this is a color personalization mode called "My Colors", which lets you make both subtle and profound changes to an image. Since the results are difficult to predict precisely, you can save the image without the correction along with the processed image. This is an excellent feature for people who like to experiment with this kind of manipulation.

Flash: Mostly Built-In

Like all compacts, the A620 has a built-in flash. Its range is approximately 10 to 13 feet (3 to 4 m), and aside from the usual functions like no-flash and forced flash, it also has slow synch and second curtain synch. This last feature means triggering the flash at the end of a longer shot rather than at the beginning (the name comes from the world of SLRs, since this kind of camera doesn't have shutter curtains). The A620 also has its own exposure correction, so there is more flexibility for users who need it. On the other hand, there's no synchronization for an external flash; the flash Canon offers as an accessory operates off the built-in flash.