The "point-n-shoot" GREEN mode is for beginners or anyone that just wants to take a picture without setting anything. The only menu option is for image quality.

Auto mode has an informative Help function that is invoked by depressing the ?/Fn button. All functions of the Mode dial, 4-way controller and buttons on the camera's back cover are described.

Program AE mode is also an automatic mode but the user has many menu and function options available. When the shutter is half-pressed and the auto focus is locked, the AF bracket will shrink and turn green, the selected shutter speed and aperture value is also displayed.

Pressing the DISPLAY button turns the color LCD on/off and also controls how much information is shown on top of the live image. Here we have all the exposure information enabled including the real time histogram.

Pressing the ?/Fn button in other than Auto mode brings up this shortcut menu to quickly change image size, image quality or exposure compensation. The functions assigned to the 4-way controller are registered via the Setup menu.

Record MENU options:

Recorded Pixels - 2560x1920, 2304x1728, 2048x1536, 1600x1200, 1024x768 or 640x480
Quality Level - Best, Better or Good
White Balance - Auto, Daylight, Shade, Tungsten, Fluorescent or Manual
Focusing Area - Multi. or Spot
AE Metering - Multi segment, Center-weighted or Spot
Sensitivity - Auto, 50, 100, 200, 400
Frame Rate - Movie frame rate of 30 or 15fps
Digital Zoom - On/Off
Instant Review - 0.5, 1, 2, 3, or 5 secs. and Off
Memory - Saving shooting function settings when camera is turned off
Sharpness - Hard, Normal or Soft
Saturation - Hard, Normal or Soft
Contrast - Hard, Normal or Soft
EV Compensation - +/-2.0 in 1/3EV steps

If you find the menu options difficult to read, touching the telephoto zoom control enlarges the font.

The PICTure Modes available are: Flower, Self-portrait, Surf, Snow, Sunset, Museum, Text, Food, Landscape Portrait.

In Super Macro Mode you can close focus from 2.4 to 8 inches with excellent results, regular Macro mode covers a range from 7 to 18 inches.

To focus manually -- Press the 4-way selector "right" until "MF" is displayed and then adjust the focus distance by using the Up and Down positions of the 4-way controller. When you are actively changing the focus, the center portion of the LCD display is magnified and a distance scale is shown on the left. The focus can also be locked at infinity.

Movie mode lets you record motion JPEG at 320 x 240 resolution at 30 or 15fps; monaural audio is also recorded. The length of movies is limited only by available memory space.

The S55 can be used as a voice-only recorder too.