Manual settings for Canon A40

Hi all,
I'm new at Canon Digital Photography forum and I'd like to welcome all current members. I'd also like to ask you for some help. I own 2 Canon cameras SLR Rebel 2000 and digital A40. My favorite setting for SLR is Aperture Priority when I can control depth of field using an aperture and camera can automatically adjust a shutter speed. I bought A40 hoping that it will allow me to do something similar (at least in the range of aperture settings) but it turned out that manual settings in A40 are the "real" manual when I have to enter both aperture and shutter speed settings. I've checked the manual but id doesn't say much about it. My question is what do you guys use to make sure that the picture will not be over or under exposure? I know that for a shots without flash I can use a display to see how the photo looks like but when I was using a flash the results were very strange. I was trying to take some shots at home and with flash on and with aperture set to 8 photos were pretty good but with aperture set to 2.8 all photos were overexposure and, what is even more strange, they looked the same with time set to 1/1500 and to 1/100. Does the A40 automatically adjust the shutter speed to the chosen aperture? Do you know any websites where I can find some more information about manual settings for Canon compact digital cameras?

Thanks a lot,
Janusz Kwasny

Try here if you haven't already.

http://www.canon.co.jp …0/PSA40_141-e.html#manual

Laurie

It says the same as the manual which comes with the camera. It really doesn't explain why all picture taken with Manual setting with aperture 2.8 and flash on are overexposure regardless of shutter speed setting. I really miss the "real" aperture priority setting but it is just not this level of the camera. Thanks.
Janusz