Auto Mode (7.5)
The automatic mode can be easily found on the mode dial, as it is the only green icon amongst the ring of otherwise black icons. The auto mode turns the Canon A620 into a point-and-shoot model with hardly any options – exactly what an auto mode should do. The few options available in the recording menu include drive mode, image size and compression. The auto mode is great for optimal sunny lighting, but doesn’t react well to backlit or low lit scenes.

Movie Mode (7.25)
The Canon PowerShot A620’s movie mode records 640 x 480 and 320 x 240 pixels at selectable frame rates of 30 and 15 frames per second. Regular recording can be done at these resolutions or the My Colors mode can be activated as well. The A620 also has a compact setting that records 160 x 120 pixels at 15 frames per second for a maximum of 3 minutes.

The A620 also has Canon’s unique Fast Frame Rate movie mode. This records at a reduced resolution of 320 x 240 pixels, but does so at a quick 60 frame-per-second rate. This mode looks great on the LCD screen, but looks a bit grainy on a television. Still, the difference can be seen in quick action clips. Movements appear slightly blurred at 30 fps, but look solid and smooth as ever at 60 fps.

The Canon A620 records monaural audio with the movies and is of a pretty decent quality. There is no optical zoom available while recording movies, which is unfortunate. Even more unfortunate are the metering and auto focus systems in the movie mode. The auto focus is unreliable in high-contrast situations. For example, recording a movie of Baby Bruce crawling near a bright window garnered blurry footage. The camera remained out of focus the entire time and didn’t attempt to refocus. The A620 uses the default evaluative metering mode for movies, so backlit subjects aren’t going to look like anything more than shadows. For simple movies in neutral light, the A620 is a good option. It records up to the capacity of the memory card or to 1 GB, whichever comes first.

Drive / Burst Mode (6.0)
This digital camera’s burst mode is a bit slower than average at 1.9 fps. This is slower than the little sibling of this camera, the PowerShot A610. That camera has a faster 2.4 fps burst mode. The Canon PowerShot A620’s burst mode can be activated in the Func./Set menu. In this same menu, the self-timer can be activated three different ways. There is a two-second self-timer, a ten-second option, and a custom timer option that delays for 0-30 seconds, then takes a burst of 1-10 shots. The pictures are taken one after another, so the family portrait can be taken up to ten times and photographers can hope for at least one shot with everyone’s eyes open. This feature alone is invaluable to large families where keeping young kids still for ten seconds is a major ordeal.

Playback Mode (7.0)
Reviewing pictures and videos on the Canon PowerShot A620 is simple, but there isn’t much excitement to the playback mode. More recent cameras are coming out with places to store favorite photos and modes to sync the pictures with music and such. The A620 doesn’t join this trend; it goes for function. Its features are basic; users can review photos individually or in index frames of 9 pictures. The top portion of the multi-selector also acts as a ‘jump’ button that makes navigating through large numbers of pictures easy. Users can jump to the tenth or hundredth picture, or jump to a certain date or to movie files only. Single images can be viewed with the file info and histogram or be magnified up to 10x. They can also be rotated or played in slide shows.

The A620’s slide show mode is called Auto Play and is located five deep in the playback menu. This is quite buried for users who frequently put on shows for the grandparents. In playback, users can attach up to 60 seconds of audio recording to an image file. This is great for those bird watchers who appreciate the chirping customized settings; they can take a picture of a bird and record a note about where it was seen and what behavior it displayed.

Movies can be played back in VCR-style. Fast forward and rewind can be executed at regular or slow speeds. Users can even scroll through movies frame by frame to catch instant replays of the family basketball game. If users don’t like a particular portion of a movie, they can edit it by cutting off the beginning or end and saving it as a separate file. The undesirable, longer file can then be deleted. Overall, the playback mode is fairly basic but does have a few highlights with the movie editing and jump function. It is easily located with the playback switch to the right of the LCD.

Custom Image Presets (7.5)
The Canon PowerShot A620 has 11 scene modes, three of which are located directly on the mode dial. Night Scene, Landscape and Portrait have their own positions. Besides being easier to find, they differ from the other scene modes in that the white balance, picture effects and flash output options are all available. The other modes only allow access to the same drive mode, image size and compression options that are available in the auto mode.

The other scene modes can be found under the SCN position on the mode dial. The following scenes are available when users scroll right and left with the multi-selector: Snow, Beach, Fireworks, Underwater, Night Snapshot, Kids & Pets, Indoor and Foliage. There is a live view when users scroll through these, so the effects of the different settings can be more easily seen. This is great for beginners who may not know whether they should choose Kids & Pets or Indoor, but will see the difference when toggling between the two.

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