sx40 tips.
4 points which I find very useful and so may be of interest to others:
1) Hold a half-press long enough to activate an auto-focus cycle and then before letting up that half-press press the left of the dial, and Manual mode will be selected focussed on whatever the Auto-focus focussed on! That shortcut works on at least 3 cameras including the sx30 and sx40.
2) Hold down the 'On' button for 2 seconds-ish when auto-loading CHDK to go straight into 'Take a Photo' mode rather than 'View a Photo' mode.
3) One can activate CHDK while filming; i.e. without stopping the film; e.g. to use the CHDK focussing system, which is almost essential, e.g. for a bird within a tree or at sea, as the built in Canon manual focus is practically useless, and the CHDK version is superbly versatile. Many thanks to the geniuses who designed that for CHDK !
Anyone care to pass on any other useful shortcuts/tips?
Whilst using Andrew Hazelden's Motion Detection Plus - which worked great on my sx 40 - I tried it with the sx40's 'Movie Digest', and the 2 worked well together most (tho not all ! ) of the time.
4) 'Movie Digest' is a curious mode on the sx 40 which stores 2 to 4 seconds of film and which starts 2 to 4 seconds BEFORE either the 'Take a Photo' button is pressed or is simulated by CHDK !! The film is unfortunately only at 640 x 480, and nothing I have tried with CHDK increases this quality, but even so as an adjuct to motion detection it is a super effect. Altho' one second at 1920 x 1080 would be a lot better! I had ignored this mode for a year as a gimmick but when used with motion detect it almost guarantees a complete recording of the event which triggered a photo to be taken, be it lightning or any other transient event!
I am really sorry I cannot give credit to the guy who passed on the 'Auto-focus to manual' trick, but I have ONE HELLUVA job finding my way around this site and could never find his comment again. I would ask for advice but from past experience I will never be able to find this comment again either, let alone a reply!!
BillBal
