icave wrote:Let me clarify. By "lousy" I meant it's not in the same class as some of the more expensive SLRs. I have specifically bought two A540s for the manual settings. I use my A540 with the manual setting on a regular basis, use the flash similarly and have taken what I think are many nice pictures, and even some good in-cave video with it. Unfortunately the A540 didn't like the 100 ft water crawl between Higginbotham #1 and the entrance to #5 during convention. My backup Canon SX120IS did fine in cave, but I still like the A540 better. I bought my last A540 on ebay (after my first one died) and will be looking for another one, or a "waterproof" camera. I have found the A540 (ignoring the automatic lens cover issues) to be a fantastic, inexpensive, in-cave camera.
I didn't mean to be bashing my A540, but was trying to illuminate on some of the things I have found that work with the FF3s.
Oh, right. I see what you mean about the A540, and I agree. Not really in a the same class as
any DSLRs. Like you I've shot half-decent in cave video with mine but there are certainly point and shoots around now with better image quality and build. Incidentally, did you know Canon makes a waterproof housing for the A540? (I got a near-new one on eBay cheap, and it's been very useful.)
As for the automatic blade-style lens cap, yes it sucks. Even non-cavers who find themselves around a little dust/grit/sand etc seem to have issues. After a while it started sticking when I powered up the camera, so I found a fix which mostly seems to work. Tried brushing and blowing it out with air (which didn't help much) and then took a fine flat blade jewelers screwdriver and gently pried up on the plastic edge around the lens, working my way around and creating slightly more of a gap for the lens "cap" blades to retract into. Not exactly perfect, but it helps. This isn't the only camera plagued by this type of
problem, and I probably won't buy one of this type again.