The main menu system for the
A720 can be accessed by pressing the menu key located at five
o'clock from the arrow pad. There are two sets of menus: one
for shooting mode, another for playback mode. Pressing the
FUNC/SET button located at the center of the arrow pad will
display a Quick Menu of commonly used functions in shooting
mode.
In shooting mode, there are two menu tabs. The shooting tab
lists a menu of shooting items. The other tab displays a menu
of tools for the camera.
Here are the options in the shooting menu:
AF frame. This allows you to customize
what you want to focus on in a shot. You can focus on
the center of the shot, on a particular area of the
shot, on faces or on an area based on an analysis of
nine areas within the shooting area.
AF frame size. Sets the size of focus
box on the display. There are two options: normal and small.
Digital Zoom. Lets you set values
for the digital zoom--4x, 2.0x, 1.6x--or turn it off.
Flash Sync. Choose between first curtain
or second curtain when shooting with flash at low shutter speeds.
Redeye. Turn redeye reduction for flash
on or off.
Spot AE Point. Lets you control where
to place the auto exposure point for spot metering of a
shot--at the center of a frame or wherever the AF box is
located.
MF-Point Zoom. When manually focusing
the camera, this feature allows you to enlarge an area in
a shot for better focusing.
Safety MF. Allows you to combine manual
with auto focusing for a shot.
AF Assist Beam. Enables or disables
built-in light for assisting camera in focusing in
low light conditions.
Review. Sets time at which image
remains on screen after a shot from 0-10 seconds.
Display Overlay. Allows you to
place grid on the display for better composition of
shots.
IS Mode. Turns off image stabilization
or activates it during continuous shooting, all shooting
or while panning.
Converter. Used
when attaching a converter lens to the camera (WC-DC58N,
TC-DC58N, 250D).
Date Stamp. Turns
this feature on or off.
Set Print Button.
Redefine the print button. Options available include
ISO, white balance, custom white balance, digital
tele converter, display overlays and display off.
From the tools tab,
you can access these funtions.
Mute. Turn sound on or off.
Volume. Set volume levels
for start up, operation, self-timer, shutter and
playback.
Start Up Image. To use or
not to use an image, that's the purpose of this
function.
Power Saving. Turn auto power
down on or off. Set time at which display will
automatically turn off from 10 seconds to three
minutes.
Date and Time.
Format Memory Card.
File Numbering.
Make numbering continuous or automatically reset
numbers after files erased from card.
Create Folder.
Create a new folder or automatically create folders
based on time--either Monday through Sunday, daily
or monthly and hour of the day.
Auto Rotate. Automatically rotate verticals.
Distance Units. Choice of meters/centimeter
or feet/inch.
Lens Retract. Set time to retract lens
from zero seconds one minute.
Language. 25 languages available.
{insert photo_8_languages}
Video System. Set output to
NTSC or PAL.
Print Method.
Reset All. A
valuable option to have after cruising through
a maze of menus and changing them willy nilly.
When the camera is in playback mode, three tabbed menus are
available.
With the
playback tab, you can access the following menu items.
Autoplay. Automatically plays
images in the camera.
Redeye Correction. Corrects
redeye in images inside camera.
Resize. Resizing options available
by pressing FUNC/SET button.
Sound Memo. Lets you add voice
message to image.
Protect. Locks image file so it
can't be accidently erased.
Rotate. Rotates image 45°
clockwise each time FUNC/SET is pressed
Erase all. Erases all images.
Transfer Order. Permits you to
customize the order by which images are transferred
from camera.
Transition. Sets transitions
between images during autoplay.
There's also a print tab in playback mode. Menu
items available under that tab are as follows.
Print. That's only active if
you're printing directly from the camera.
Select Images & Quality.
Select All Images.
Clear All Selections.
Print Settings. A submenu for
this item includes options for choosing a print
type such as printing images in index form and
printing photos with date, file number and DPOF
information.
The third
tab is a reprise of the tools menu.
Versions for both PC and Mac are present on the software
CD included with the camera. The major programs on
the disc for the PC and Mac are:
Camera Window. It lets you see the images in the
camera when it's connected to the computer.
EOS Utility. It assists you in downloading images
from the camera to the computer.
PhotoStitch. It permits you to sew together photos
taken in the camera's panorama view.
ImageBrowser. It allows you to organize your images
and create slideshows from them.
The interfaces for the image browsers vary between
the platforms.
The Mac interface is less busy than the PC's. It
has two tabs--one for previewing photos and one
for listing them. In both views there's a pane on
the left side of the program's window divided into
a section for images acquired by the program--organized
by date--and a section displaying a typical folder
tree.
In preview
mode, photos appear as thumbnails in a film strip
along the bottom of program's window. When a thumbnail
is selected, a larger version of the image appears
above it and information about it appears in a pane
along the right side of the window. There's basic
info--file name and size, data type and such. There
are also sections for rating a photo by stars, adding
comments and keywords, displaying a histogram for
the photo and finally more detailed data about the
image--camera model, shooting mode, aperture, shutter
speed and the like.
Below the strip of thumbnails are more tools for
controlling how you view your images--filtering them,
for example, or controlling the size of the thumbnails.
You can also view them in a larger window and edit
them. Editing options include crop, color-brightness
adjustment, red eye correction, text insertion, tone
curve adjustment and sharpness.
In list mode, you still have access to the tools
at the bottom of the window, but the film strip, large
image and information pane are removed, leaving just
rows of thumbnails.
The application for stitching photos into panoramas
as well as one for creating videos from photos and
movies shot with the camera can be accessed from the
program's edit menu.
The PC version of the image browser has three tabs--a
preview mode that's similar to the Mac edition, a
scroll mode that's similar to list mode in the Apple
program and a zoom mode for enlarging and shrinking
thumbnails with a single mouse click.
The PC release has a folder
tree in a pane like the Mac, but it has a set of task buttons
above the tree. Tasks include acquiring photos, viewing and
classifying images, editing pictures and exporting, printing
and e-mailing them.
All in all, the PC release of the browser has more features
than the Mac version, although the Apple edition has more
editing tools than its PC cousin.
One grave deficiency, in my mind,
with both programs, however, is their omission of a global search
for images on a hard drive to populate the application when it's
installed. The PC version is a little better than the Mac edition
because it knows that images are typically stored in My Pictures
in Windows and it makes that folder a "favorites" by default.
On a Mac, photos are ordinarily stashed in iPhoto, which seems to
be opaque to these kinds of browser programs.
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Interface & Software
