He just wants to make friends, that's all! Nice shot - probably wouldn't work as well if it were colour. I love the detail on his face - his 'whiskers' really stand out.

Yeah, not really my kind of subject, but I do like the composition of it. I agree with pretty much everyone else about how effective the background is!

I never had it set to quick. In auto it is set to 2 seconds. In other modes, it is set to off, and is not available. Review info is just setting what to show. If Review is not visible, then the info doesn't apply.

There is nothing on those pages to suggest that this should not be available in all modes.

That's what I feared... Thanks.

I turned mine off. If I try to use the 'wrong' settings, at least I will see that it doesn't work, and know why. Rather than have the camera try to take over the world.

It's a clever little beastie, but not as clever as it thinks it is!

I have just been out shooting, and found another 'clever extra' feature... At some point, I turned off the review of the shot just taken. I was shooting today in strong, directional sunlight, and I wanted to see if it was working out. I went in to the menu, and the review option is set to OFF, and greyed out so it cannot be selected. Changing the camera to Auto, I go into the menu, and review is ON, and set to 2 seconds. Change back to P, or Tv or Av, the option is still set to OFF and unavailable.

I tried searching in the wonderful pdf manual - turns out adobe reader does not have a search feature, which kinda defeats any positive reason for the online manual, but still.
I found 3 pages which reference the review function. According to the grid of features at the back, this is available in all the modes I am trying to use. The other 2 places it was mentioned do not give any indication that it cannot be turned back on again.

I know I am starting to sound like a scratched record (dating myself there...), but can anyone tell me how to get this back?

I don't know, maybe you had experience of other digital cameras before? I don't know about everybody else, but this is so far from my previous experience that it is not intuitive at all.

Heck, maybe we are all dumb and you are the clever one... I don't know.

Every other camera I have ever handled which had a Tv mode - Canon A1, Nikon F2 and FE something, Chinon (store-branded slr) - if you set a shutter speed, then that was the speed the shutter went at, no matter what. Why would I guess that the camera might not let me shoot at my chosen speed?

Enough people have posted here to let me know I am not alone in this!

Based on my experience with the sx50, it is worth trying a test run first. Every time I try something new, it turns out there is something hidden *deep* in the manual which affects what I am trying to do. If you are going to try shooting at night, it's worth going out beforehand and try your hand.

If you are an expert who has done all this before, then please excuse me. I am just a beginner who has stumbled over several aspects of using this marvelous little beastie, and would hate to see other beginners hit the same issues.

Sorry, I realise now I quoted the wrong message - I was referring to the OP's post, not yours.

Colour blindness has always fascinated me... What do they actually *see*? I know the commonest form leaves people unable to distinguish between red and green - this was why traffic lights have the amber too. So, do they see both as 'green', or both as 'red', or perhaps as 'grey'? I have never asked anyone who actually suffers from this, but in any case, how could they describe it?

I mean, I see that tree as 'green', but how can I describe that colour to you without referencing some other green item? If you happen to see my green as purple, then you would think that *that* was green...

Just the ramblings of an insane mind...

I got it printed and bound at staples, although it cost rather more than I expected - $35! I had thought about editing out most of the stuff that I will never use - face recognition? Really? - but there are so many links and references to other sections that it is just hopeless. That was how I couldn't make any sense of it from the pdf.

I don't carry it with me, but I do have one of those laminated cheat-sheets that amazon have for about $10.
Only trouble is, most times I don't carry my camera bag either! *sigh* (that's a tag which should be provided too)

Given that it is such a marvelous little camera, the crappy manual is more than frustration... Someone suggested either up above or in my other thread about the sx, that canon probably figure that *real* photographers (whatever *that* means) wouldn't bother with a camera like this. That is a decent point, I guess. There again, how many beginners can afford to spend the mega$ for a 5DIII? And someone who has the skills to use a beastie like that shouldn't *need* too much of a manual.

I was saving up, hoping to have enough to get a refurb T3i in a few months. Anything more than that would have stretched my budget way beyond breaking. When I saw some of the photos being posted here by SX50 owners, I got interested. Then, having the chance to pick one up and try the zoom (in wallmart, of all places!), plus being too impatient to wait another 3 or 4 months, well, the rest is history.

I have no regrets about the camera whatsoever. In a couple of years, if finances permit, I may well get a dslr to go with it, but at the moment this camera operates well above my skill level. Every time I try to do something other than just walking through the park looking for likely scenes, I discover that I have something else to learn.

I didn't even *find* the index until someone here pointed it out. It is lost in the pages of warnings and bumf. And yes, it is useless. There should be a mention of *every* feature in there at least once!

yep, I'll do that!

Yep, me too! :oops:

The entry just says "specific shutter speeds". To my mind, anyone who has used any kind of non-auto camera before would see that and assume that Tv means Tv. You are right, though, in that even if it listed "safety shift", who would guess what that means?

I used to be a computer sysadmin, and I know what manuals can be like. As with yours, circular references can - and will - happen. I have also tried to write user manuals for software that I have written, so I know it is not an easy job. When you know the subject intimately, it is very difficult to describe it properly, without talking 'down' to the user.

So, I do appreciate that writing these manuals is no trivial task. I just feel that this particular one is really, really bad! :D

Yeah... I wondered why on Earth they would limit the time like that. I can't imagine that they would pay that much, though. I bought a little 'action cam' - the poor man's GoPro - last summer. I only paid $40 for it, so I am pretty sure it must be Japanese/Chinese/something-ese. If they can sell those that cheaply, how much duty could they be paying? I also have a panasonic 'handy-cam', which records 5 hours of full-HD on a 32GB SDcard. I think I only paid about $100 for that.

I wouldn't have minded, except that, if I hadn't run this test first, I would have ended up screwed on the night! The manual does not exactly make it clear - until you dig in pretty deeply. This limitation *should* be there in big bold letters, right on the page about shooting movies.

When I ran my tests yesterday, I got 16 minutes of full HD, 20-some minutes of 720, and 59 minutes at 640. The book says as an afterthought that it will only record for an hour even at that resolution.

This is going to make my recording somewhat problematic.
The service runs about an hour - but we give a little concert first on handbells. If I record that, then the recording is going to stop part-way through the service.
I know the 2 camcorders will record longer, but I guess I need to check my P&S, which is going to be the 4th string to my fiddle. I need to get very strategic - there is no way I can wander off down the church in the middle, to reset a camera... Hmmm...