Manual Control Options
The Canon PowerShot A460 comes with a number of manual controls, although it falls short of providing budget consumers with control over focus or aperture. The A460’s manual controls are: exposure compensation, white balance, ISO, and metering. All but the metering options are within the function menu. Slow shutter speeds are listed as a sub-sub-menu in the function menu and can only be reached by first highlighting the exposure compensation sub-menu and then pressing the menu button. It’s like digging for treasure, but way less rewarding since all that's accomplished is locating a control that should have been apparent from the start.
The manual control settings can’t be accessed when shooting in auto mode. Only exposure compensation can be altered when shooting with scene modes. The movie mode only allows access to the white balance settings for manual adjustment. Overall layout and accessibility to manual controls is an area that Canon has pretty much locked down. If the metering mode were moved to the function menu users would only need to enter one menu system to make all adjustments to manual controls.
Focus
Auto Focus (6.0)
The A460 has a 5-point AiAF system with the option to switch from this default mode into a 1-point fixed AF center frame. Switching between these two modes is possible via the rec. menu and the AiAF sub-menu where the user can choose to turn the 5-point system on or off. Auto focus took a little over a second to settle once the shutter was partially pressed. Resetting the focus to a different subject took slightly longer. The camera makes a fair amount of mechanical noise when setting the auto focus and although the sounds aren’t alarming, they are present. Shooting in low light with only the auto focus may test a user’s patience. After several seconds of attempted adjustment the camera remained out-of-focus and display an on-screen indicator that alluded to the lack of a precise focal subject. The flash helped, but in situations where a flash isn’t appropriate it might be necessary to move your subject to better light or higher contrast.
Additionally, the Canon PowerShot A460 has other focusing features like an AF-assist beam, a macro mode that allows for shooting between 5 and 47 cm in wide or 25 to 47 cm in telephoto and a Super Macro mode that has a focusing range of 1 to 5 cm in wide angle. The macro modes works well - photographs are consistently in focus, although the low quality, low resolution screen doesn’t make it an easy task. Luckily the camera continues to display a green square indicating focal area and focus success for users who don’t wish to rely on shaky on-screen image quality.
Manual Focus (0.0)
The Canon PowerShot A460 does not have any manual focus options. Although this isn’t too surprising for a low budget camera, the lack of a manual focus is definitely limiting, especially for the beginner hoping to advance their skills.
Metering (7.0)
The Canon PowerShot A460 offers evaluative, center weighted average, and spot metering modes. Users will be surprised to find that metering control is not included in the function menu alongside all the other manual control options. Instead the metering mode options can be found in the rec. menu. Aside from the odd placement, the inclusion of a manually-selectable metering mode is helpful.
Exposure (7.0)
Exposure compensation is easily accessible in the A460’s manual shooting mode. The exposure compensation sub-menu is listed along the left side of the LCD screen. A live view provides users with a preview of the settings. The A460’s exposure compensation scale is from +/-2 EV in 1/3-step increments. Adjustments are made to the exposure settings by pressing the left and right arrows of the four-way control. Overall, the A460’s exposure options are standard for a camera in this price range.
White Balance (7.5)
In addition to an automatic setting and a handful of preset options, the PowerShot A460 also comes with manual white balance. The white balance menu is located within the function menu, opened by pressing the func./set button on the back of the camera body. The white balance sub-menu is clearly labeled navigated using the left and right arrows of the four-way control. White balance options are: auto, daylight, cloudy, tungsten, fluorescent, fluorescent H, and the aforementioned custom mode. Custom white balance is quickly set and there were no complications when making the adjustment. Like ISO and exposure compensation, changes to white balance can be previewed with the live view screen.
ISO (5.5)
The Canon PowerShot A460’s ISO sensitivity options are found in the function menu. They are: auto, 80, 100, 200, and 400. ISO is selected and adjusted on the A460 with the four-way controller. The ISO options on the A460 are much more limited than most current cameras on the market. It should be noted that the noise displayed on the LCD screen is vastly different from the noise in the final image. The low resolution LCD has an extremely difficult time replicating shadows and dark content matter and tended to spit up random pixels throughout the image that ranged from light blue to green to purple. That said, noise is definitely an issue with this camera even with the automatic noise reduction feature that engages at speeds of 1.3 seconds or slower. A word to the wise if shooting with this camera: take a moment and, if possible, move your subjects to a brightly lit space or engage the flash.
Shutter Speed (0.0)
The Canon PowerShot A460 has an automatic shutter speed range of 15 seconds to 1/2000th of a second. Additionally, the camera has a manually controllable slow shutter speed range from 1 second to 15 seconds that can be found in what perhaps may be the least logical menu design ever created on a point-and-shoot camera. Instead of having an obvious shutter speed menu, Canon has placed the shutter speed in a secondary sub-menu that can only be accessed when the exposure compensation setting in the function menu is highlighted. Once this sub-menu is highlighted the user can then press the menu button at which time the shutter settings will be displayed. Quick? No. Logical? No. Intuitive? No. A user-friendly design for the budding novice photographer? Hardly. With this many twists and turns it’s surprising that this camera doesn’t come with an alternate owner’s manual designed by Borges.
Users can choose from the following shutter speeds: 1, 1.3, 1.6, 2, 2.5, 3.2, 4, 5, 6,8, 10,13 and 15 seconds. These settings can be scanned by pressing the four-way control’s left and right arrows.
Aperture (0.0)
The Canon PowerShot A460’s aperture settings can’t be manually controlled. The maximum automatic aperture setting for this camera is f/2.8 in wide and f/5.8 in telephoto.
