Canon A1100 IS

Auto Mode

The Easy mode option (represented on the mode dial as a camera with a heart inside) makes things pretty simple for the A1100 IS. In this mode no settings or menus can be activated—except zoom and flash on/off. This is a good mode if you're lending the camera to a novice photographer or if you just don't want to worry about anything manual control related.

Auto mode (also found on the mode dial) gives you a bit more control. Now, most of the menus and buttons can be activated, but the camera will take photos using an entirely automated system (no manual shutter, ISO, exposure, etc.). This is a good step-up option from Easy mode if you want to begin exploring the features included in the A1100 IS.

Movie Mode

The A1100 IS is definitely not a replacement for a dedicated camcorder, but it offers basic standard definition video recording. Movies shot with the Canon A1100 IS are captured using the Motion JPEG compression and videos are saved as AVI files. Monaural audio is also recorded along with the video (in the WAV format).

Movies are recorded in standard definition at either 640 x 480 or 320 x 240 and are captured at 30 frames per second. Clips are limited to 4GB in size or 60 minutes in length. You cannot perform an optical zoom while you are recording video (the digital zoom works) and the autofocus feature doesn't appear to work once recording has begun either.

Drive/Burst Mode

The camera has a continuous shooting mode, but it has no manual controls for the feature. Canon lists the continuous shooting at roughly 2 fps, but it felt a little slower than that when we played around with the setting.

The camera has self-timer options of 10 seconds, 2 seconds, face self-timer, and custom. The face and custom self-timers can take up to 10 shots and the custom option can be set to 1-10, 15, 20, or 30 seconds.

Playback Mode

Entering playback mode is done by pressing the playback button on the back of the camera. You can move between thumbnails and full screen images using the zoom toggle and on-screen display is controlled with the display button. A good amount of information is displayed about each image—date, size, time, exposure, shutter, aperture, mode, white balance, and a histogram just to name a few.

There is a digital zoom feature on playback that has 10 increments of zoom for a picture taken at the largest size and quality setting. Other playback features include sideshow, resize, red-eye correction, rotate, I-contrast, and direct to printer options.

Custom Image Presets

The A1100 IS doesn't have many manual control options, but it has a lot of scene modes and image presets. On the mode dial are portrait, landscape, night snapshot, kids and pets, indoor, and scene. When scene mode is selected you can then choose from night, fireworks, long shutter, beach, aquarium, foliage,  snow, and ISO 3200. All the modes are represented with icons and text on the screen that give you a better idea of what each setting is for.