Canon A1100 IS

Manual Controls

While the Canon A1100 IS has plenty of scene modes and automatic settings to keep the curious point-and-shooter happy, it lacks most precise manual controls that more experienced users will crave. Program mode is the closest thing the camera has to a manual mode and it only allows you to adjust ISO sensitivity, white balance, image size, color effects, and autofocus method.

There are no manual controls for shutter speed, aperture, or focus. Keep this in mind if you're the type of  person who likes to play around with traditional camera settings—as you won't find them anywhere on the A1100 IS.

Focus

Autofocus can be set to center or Face AiAF, which will focus in on detected faces. No manual focus is available on the camera. An orange autofocus assist lamp helps focus in low-light settings.

ISO

In program mode the ISO sensitivity can be set to auto, 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, or 1600. Scene and auto modes each adjust ISO automatically and have specific settings assigned to each. The ISO 3200 scene mode boosts the ISO sensitivity to its maximum (which is higher than you can set the sensitivity manually).

White Balance

White balance presets include auto, day light, cloudy, tungsten, fluorescent, fluorescent H, and manual. Manual white balance is easy to use, just select the feature and push set when the camera is focused on a white or neutral image.

Metering

The camera has three auto exposure settings: evaluative, center weighted average, and spot. There is also an option for manual exposure adjustment that offers a range of -2 to +2 increments.

Shutter Speed

There is no dedicated manual shutter speed control on the A1100 IS, but Canon lists the shutter speed range as 15 - 1/1600 of a second. To activate very slow shutter speeds, the camera must be in the Long Shutter scene mode which can be set from 1 - 15 seconds.

Aperture

The A1100 IS also has no manual aperture control, but the maximum aperture capable on the camera is f/2.7.

Image Stabilization

The camera offers optical image stabilization and the feature can be set to continuous, shoot only, and panning.

Picture Quality & Size Options

Images can be taken in the following sizes: 4000 x 3000 (Large), 3264 x 2448 (Medium 1), 2592 x 1944 (Medium 2), 1600 x 1200 (Medium 3/Date Stamp), 640 x 480 (Small), and 4000 x 2248 (Widescreen). The camera also has quality settings of fine and normal for each size.

Picture Effects

Color settings on the A1100 IS are vivid, neutral, sepia, black & white, and custom. When custom is selected you can manually fine tune your image's contrast, sharpness and saturation. Eachof those three custom options have 5 increments of control.