Canon PowerShot SX10

In Shutter or Aperture Priority modes you can adjust the respective setting using the rotating dial around the 4-way without any other button presses or intervening menus. In full manual mode you can also use the dial to adjust these two items, switching between them using the Exposure Compensation button at the top right. One item we noticed was not easily accessible even in full manual were metering options, you'll still need to go into the Function Set menu to set that.

Focus
The Canon PowerShot SX10 IS has a focal length of 1.6 feet to infinity and offers both a standard Macro mode and Super Macro. One nice bonus that you don't often see on many consumer cameras is a manual focus. You can enable this by pressing up on the 4-way, then use the rotating dial to adjust the focus.

ISO
ISO can be adjusted by pressing left on the 4-way and then using the rotating dial to select form the ISO options. In Auto mode your only options are Auto and HI, while in manual mode you can choose from a range between 80-1600 ISO.

White Balance
White balance can be set in any of the manual modes via the Function Set menu, which is accessible by pressing the center select button on the 4-way. White balance is the first option in this menu and you can choose from Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H, Flash and Custom. The last setting allows you to use a white card to manually set the white balance.

Metering
The Function Set menu is also where you'll find metering options, about halfway down the menu. You can set metering to evaluative (balancing the exposure to best fit the full screen image), center-weighted or spot. Unlike the Canon G10 there's no dedicated button to quickly access metering options, and you can't switch between metering mode in addition to aperture and shutter speed when making quick adjustments in full manual mode.

Shutter Speed
Shutter speed ranges from 15 to 1/3200, a reasonable range for a consumer point-and-shoot.

Aperture
The SX10 IS's aperture ranges from f/2.8 - f/8.0 when you are zoomed out completely. When zoomed in completely your aperture range gets slightly smaller at f/5.7 - f/8.0. This is a slightly smaller range than the SX5 IS, but you also have to consider that the SX10 IS ups the zoom ratio from 12x to a full 20x optical.

Image Stabilization
The Canon PowerShot SX10 IS offers optical image stabilization to keep shaky hands from ruining your shots, especially when you're using that 20x optical zoom.

Picture Quality / Size Options
The Canon PowerShot SX10 IS offers three quality options for still images: Normal, Fine and SuperFine. There are also six size options ranging from 3,648 x 2,736 all the way down to 640 x 480. A wide-screen mode is also available at 3,648 x 2,048, but unlike the Canon G10 there is no option to capture in RAW format.

Picture Effects Mode
You can apply photo effects to your images using My Colors from the Function Set menu. Your options are Vivid, Vivid Blue, Vivid Green, Vivid Red, Neutral, Sepia, Black & White, Positive Film, Lighter Skin Tone, Darker Skin Tone and Custom.