Canon A610/A620
Getting Started

If you’re just getting started with the Canon A610 or the Canon A620, let me show you how I like to set up the camera and I’ll give you a couple of pointers about taking pictures with this camera that may help you out.

First thing at the top, you’ll notice this is the mode dial and you can turn this to any mode do you want to use. I prefer using the program mode. This is true for just about every picture I take. So the program mode, very similar to the automatic mode but it gives me a lot more control over certain things that helped me improve image quality.

Next thing is the zoom lever. You use this to zoom out or zoom in to your subject. Let's look at the bottom. Here is your tripod mount and your battery dark cover. Just firmly press on the battery door over locking mechanism like this. Push it over and then push the door out in order to open this battery door and here, you’ll see a little diagram of how the batteries should be inserted into their compartments then close it. Just firmly, press until the battery door is flushed with the camera and then just push it back.

Back here, you have the memory card door. Just put your fingernail here in this ridge and just push that out like that. The memory is spring loaded just push down to pop it out this way. You’ll notice that the face or the sticker on the memory card is facing the back of the camera. So if you’re inserting a memory card for the first time and sort of in this direction. There’s only really one way that it will allow you to d it so don’t worry. There’s really no way of getting that wrong. Press it all the way in until it clicks and close the door.

In the back, the LCD screen does swivel and this is a very, very handy feature. It comes out. You can protect it and usually, I don’t do that. It can also swivel in this way when you want the camera to be low to the ground, you can look down at the LCD screen or flip it this way if it's over your head, you can look up at the screens so that’s very, very handy most of the time. Over, I just flip back like that.

Okay, let's go and turn the camera on. By default, the menu is set up in a certain way and there are couple things that I want to change so let me just show you how to do that. First thing you should understand is that the menu items are split into two families. One is the function item or the function menu and this hosts, let me just press the function button right here in the center. This hosts a few items that you probably need more often than all the other menu items in the main menu. Every time you take a picture, you want to make sure your ISO and your white balance are both set up properly. Also, your resolution is down here. So these are things that your most frequently need.

In order to navigate the function menu and the main menu, you have these four buttons right here, up, down, left and right. Up and down will move the red indicating square up and down and the left and right will change that function’s setting. So, if I gp down to image quality, first thing you’ll notice is that it's up to the middle option which is not the best image quality the camera can produce and since I do want the best, I’m just going to press the left navigation button to move over to super fine. And yes, you’ll notice that the number of pictures I can take on this memory card has drop significantly but the image quality is much better and that’s what I would like to use. Go ahead and press the function button to escape the function menu at any time and let's go into the main menu.

The main menu, I’ve pretty much just go into once to kind of set up the camera and after that I rarely, very rarely entered this menu. But first, let's go ahead and go to this top setting. Auto focus frame by default, it's set to AIAF and I want to set at the center, are the center option will allow me to focus on what I want, I suppose to letting the camera focus on what it thinks I want. So, go out and choose center down a little further. Red eye is turned on by default and in never use red eye. I don’t think it helps at all and I prefer using the computer to eliminate red eye. So go ahead and turn that off and that’s it for the record menu tab. Let's go up and to the right, to the set up menu, go down to the date and time. If you’ve never set up the date and time, you’ll notice that every time you turn the camera on, it automatically prompts you to set the date and time and this is very, very important. Go ahead and set the date and time because those image-organizing applications need this information in order to best organize your pictures by date and time.

Down below that, if you go down one more, you’ll see format and this is very important to keep tract off. Because every time you either take the memory card out and use a memory card reader or if you use the USB cable from the camera itself in order to download pictures, it's good to reinsert the memory card or disconnect the USB cable. Once you’re done with that and format the memory card, this will erase all the pictures on the memory card and everything else. You erase all function that you’ll see in the play menu. It does not erase everything that’s on the memory card. It only erases all the images that the camera can see. So sometimes computers will leave files on the memory cards that in don’t want so format is a good option for that. They’ll keep your camera or your memory card very healthy.

Let's go up and over to the—my camera tab, this is really very personal. You can set this up however you want. These are just images and sounds that the camera makes in different times. The start up image for example is something that is displayed every time the camera is turned so I don’t want an image that start up and I certainly don’t need a sound every time the camera starts up so I like to turn those off. Everything here is really just up to you and really it has nothing to do with image quality.

Okay, let's press the menu button to escape the menu and go ahead and press the display button to display all the different items, the features that the camera –the way the camera is set up before taking a picture. Your at the current mode or the flash situation is like my ISO setting image quality, the number of pictures I have left. All these information, I find to be very, very useful. So I like pressing the display button to acces this. You only have to do that ones. Every time you turn the camera on, I will remember where the display was left and it’ll bring this up again. So this can be very, very handy.

Finally, when you’re taking pictures and this is true for every digital camera. You always want to press your shutter button half way. This is probably the most important thing with digital photography. These cameras do take a little bit longer to find the focus point and get set up when you’re taking the picture. So you can't expect to just press this and the camera will simultaneously take a picture. What you want to do is press the shutter button halfway. Let me show you how to focus. Put your focusing square on your subject. Usually, if it's a picture of a person, I like to focus on their eyes if it's close enough or if not then somewhere generally on their face or in their body.

Press the shutter button halfway, you’ll see your focusing square will turn green which indicates that the camera has found a focus point and then you want to reposition the camera to have the composition image the way you want it. The image composed just as you want it. Notice, my button is still pressed halfway which means my focus is still locked at that same distance.

Once, I have my picture lined up the way I want to. I have it composed just the way I like or let's say I’m waiting for or supporting for something to happen then I just wait for that to happen and then I just press the shutter button the rest of the way and the picture is instantaneously captured. So that’s how you should be taking all your pictures. Press the shutter button halfway first and then the rest of the way.