My own field guide for Powershot SX30 IS
Feb 15, 2012
Not long ago I posted here for some help on my newly purchased Powershot SX30 IS. Any books, guides, etc. Nothing like that, I learned, but there is a laminated Cheat Sheet that I bought. While that contains a huge amount of references I ended up becoming more frustrated than helped as I tried to see the navigation logic behind it. When I'm out in the field I also don't want to have to swim thru a 196 page manual either.
I decided to create for myself what I call a "Field Guide for Canon Powershot SX30 IS Camera", sheets 1 thru 3. When printed to 8 1/2 x 11, they can be folded to fit into a pocket of my carrying case. I also intend to have the full Canon guide with me nearby (in the car trunk) if needed. Canon promised to send that four weeks ago and it arrived yesterday. A 4th sheet is a template form to keep my hand printed settings for each mode that I use. My memory isn't what it used to be so this should help me duplicate settings that worked for me today -- in case I'm in a similar situation next month.
No sense keeping this Field Guide under a rock as it may help other SX30 users as well so I decided to attach all 4 PDF files for your downloading and printing convenience.
Sheet 1 contains the SX30 quick guide to the camera's general operation settings in table form. All 16 items are listed along with their factory defaults and those which are sticky -- ones that stay despite a Reset All. You may be surprised at some of these. It also has an illustration to the various push button switches. All 15 are numbered which serve as an index for the table of functions on the other sheets. Finally, a full explanation to what Reset All really means. Believe it or not, it can mean several things.
Sheets 2 and 3 are loosely based on Canon's tables on pages 182 - 186. Some 43 of the camera's functions are found here and unlike the ones from their guide, these tables tells you most of their default settings along with which Push button actually gets you started with each function.
Sheet 4 is a template which I'll copy many times over. It's for pencil recording my own setting groups for each of the 43 line items. The C1 and C2 modes are great but I still want to know what's inside each one of those -- plus others. They're all simply too much for me to keep track of without some record. I'll make several copies of this one for various situations -- outdoors and nature, inside get-togethers and groups, closeups, portraits, etc.
I suppose more expensive models have more than 2 custom memory banks but I guess I'll just have to rough it with the SX30.
Len Miller
ps: I haven't been able to post with hyperlinks in this forum. Perhaps it's because they're in PDF format. Always, the "page not found" error message. That's only a guess. I've reported the problem several times during the past month. For that reason I'm giving you a thumbnail of the 4 pages with the shortened hyperlink on each page graphic. If you wish your own copies you'll have to navigate the old fashioned way. Heads Up -- the last 5 characters of the link are case sensitive.



