Well I went back to the ticks counter, is working well now without playing games with 'real time'. Too steep a learning curve grok camera stuff as well as learn Lua
Now I'm using get_prop for some camera features, these should be 'get_some_feature' some time to hide the property number and to work across different cams? With a590 reliably using digic III's:
6 - focus mode 0, 1, 3, 4, 5 - normal, macro, infinity, manual, super-macro(sx10)
115 - camera ready 0, 1 - no, yes (indicates camera is focused, for fast autofocus or manual focus set)
Still need a590 LED control, shut_down doesn't... Dunno where to start looking for these.
Cheers!