About a year ago, I bought a Canon A590 IS digital camera. The rationale was, “Hey, I can use this camera to take pictures! Of stuff!” Actually, the primary reason I wanted it was optical image stabilization. I’m particularly bad with taking photos indoors; they always come out blurry. Optical IS really helps with that.

Fast forward to today. I was replacing the batteries when I noticed a little lid inside the battery compartment. I popped it up, saw a button battery come up, and immediately realized I had just erased my camera’s settings. While re-setting up the camera, I went on a magical journey of discovery. Among the features I found were:

  • Resolutions lower than 8 megapixels. I could, but why would I when I’ve barely dented my 8GB SD card at full resolution?
  • Movie mode. It takes OK video, and says it can fit about 100 minutes of full quality video (640x480, 20fps) on my 8GB SD card.
  • A microphone. I had mute mode on (because I don’t care for the UI sounds) when I was playing with video. Because of that, it didn’t play back audio when I was previewing it on the camera, and didn’t notice I had actually recorded audio until I transferred it to my computer.
  • Audio note taking. Logical progression here, people.
  • Full manual mode. I vaguely remember this from when I bought it. I have no idea what half the settings do, and the photos I take look horrible.