Overview of a great camera: Canon Powershot A540

I'm a decidedly novice photographer, although it is something of a running joke in my family about just how many photos I take. I was looking to replace my previous digital camera, which took great pictures of stationary objects but wasn't fast enough to catch the shot I wanted if the subject wasn't holding still-- e.g. kids at play. I've now had this camera for a month and taken approximately 450 photos in various conditions. Some things I've noticed:

1) Battery life: not great, but frankly better than I expected. I'm on the third set of disposable batteries; the set that came with the camera lasted about 100 photos, and I switched out the second set a couple days ago before leaving on a trip-- they weren't "dead" but I figured they were close to the end of their usefulness. Partially charged batteries are most noticable when using the flash, when they can really delay getting that next shot. And it is GREAT to be able to use AA batteries.

2) Red eye: Wow!!! What a dramatic improvement from my old A95! Yes, I still occasionally have to correct red-eye, but far less often. I do have the built in red-eye reduction set to "on"

3) Speed: again, WOW!!! There is virtually no shutter lag-- I press the button, and get the picture I wanted. Ok, I've also learned to partially depress the button to focus the camera and wait for the shot I want-- but even when my subject is in motion and I don't want to pre-focus I can virtually always catch the moment I meant to catch. Assuming I either have fresh batteries or am not using the flash, I can take the next photo just a few heartbeats later-- and I understand that there is a "burst mode" I haven't used which takes 2 photos a second until terminated or out of memory.

4) Ergonomics: There are smaller cameras out there, but this will fit if awkwardly in my pants pocket. It is significantly lighter weight than my old camera. Controls are logical and easy to use; they don't get bumped accidentally but aren't hard to adjust on purpose.

5) Settings: There are a multitude of pre-determined settings on this camera; I've just scratched the surface and have been impressed so far. This lets those of us with skills best described as "push here dummy" get better shots under special circumstances-- on the beach, snow scenes, indoor shots, objects in motion. The manual settings are wasted on me, but I understand they are there, too.

6) Zoom: the 4x optical zoom means is more than you'll find most anywhere else (with a few notible exceptions). This camera also has a on-screen icon that will blink at you if there is camera motion that might compromize your shot. I have noticed that I just plain can't hold the camera still enough at maximal zoom to avoid having this warning flash at me. I haven't noticed that snapshot quality was affected, but I suspect that if you blew it up to 8x10 (or perhaps larger) that you might notice it. It does make me wonder if a 3x zoom would have been adequate for my needs, since the odds of me hauling around and using a tripod are virtually nil. I have the digital zoom turned off on the camera; I figure I can crop if I want to after the fact but am starting with a maximal resolution.

7) Memory: get another card. Period. I have a 1 GB card that I've never come close to filling despite setting photoquality at maximum resolution, but I download frequently and haven't used burst mode or video.

8) Photo quality: Great! I can see the individual water drops glisten in mid-air in the shots of my son splashing my husband, colors are rich and accurate. Some shots, especially if I'm using the "kidsnpets" setting, are a little "soft"-- not quite crisp images, but I only notice this when I really blow the image up on my computer screen and I doubt I'd appreciate it otherwise. I think if you are ordering an 8x10 or smaller you wouldn't recognize it at all.

The one thing I liked better about my old canon A95: The rotating LCD display, which was also a bit more visible in bright light (possibly because I could adjust the angle)