Only heaven knows why Casio did not put these in the manuals. Some of them are great features that should be shouted from the rooftops!! Click on the links below or scroll down.

• Hidden menus and OS options - from displaying the firmware version number and entering the "Test mode" screen, to functions such as recording of photos in raw format, display of focus distance on screen, etc., it's all here

• Taking pictures in TIFF mode
• Extended Shutter Speeds & Aperture Control
• Extra keys for navigating Menus
• Forcing write of Card Browser HTML

Anyone know of any others? In particular, how to open the internal menus mentioned on this page. Let me know, too.

As well, here's some user experiences that can help.

• Opening up the camera for (flash) repair
• Use camera as a removable drive

I'm indebted (again!) to Paul Higginbottom for his most excellent FAQ, and all the users on the DPreview Casio Talk forum.

Taking pictures in TIFF mode

I recommend reading the above FAQ for full details.

• to start TIFF mode: with the camera in REC mode, press SET & FLASH. All photos will be stored in the \TIFF folder on your card/microdrive and cannot be viewed on the camera.
• to stop TIFF mode: turn camera off and on again.

Extended Shutter Speeds & Aperture Control

Extended shutter speeds go to 60 seconds (plus Bulb) with full aperture control - now that's a feature!!

To get into extended shutter speed mode:

• While in S-Mode press the DOWN button until the shutter speed reads 2 Secs. Then press the SET button and DOWN. You can now go beyond this 2 second shutter speed barrier. Change speeds using the UP or DOWN switch as usual.

To manually set the aperture as well:

• Press SET and RIGHT and the f/stop will be indicated on the LCD above the shutter speed.
• Then use LEFT and RIGHT to change the aperture to the desired values.
• To turn off the manual aperture adjustment and go back to just shutter mode, press the MODE button twice.

Extra keys for navigating Menus

These extra keys can greatly speed up moving through the camera menus because you can use both hands, try it and see!
When in any menu (either PLAY or REC)

• the SHUTTER can be used in place of SET
• the MODE key closes all open menus and returns to operation

Forcing write of Card Browser HTML

This is documented but pretty well hidden so I thought I'd put it here.

Normally the camera writes an HTML index of all photos taken, call the 'Card Browser', when the photo session is finished. This can take over a minute if you have been snap-happy, so you can turn off generation of the card browser HTML in the 'SET UP', 'Card Browser' menu.

While in that menu you can see a key prompt at the bottom 'MAKE (DISP)'. This means, even with 'Card Browser' set to 'Off', you can force the camera to write the card browser HTML files by pressing DISP when in this menu. Neat, huh? That way you can save time for when you want to waste it ... errm, not quite what I meant but it'll do.

The card browser files are very handy for browsing photos on your camera while connected via USB to a computer that doesn't have Photoloader.

Use camera as a removable drive

Not so much a hidden feature of the camera as a way of using it as a USB-connected storage device. Keith Meyers in a thread entitled Using your casio as a removable Hard Drive at the DP Review Casio Forum suggested:

As a side note, if you hook your camera up you will see the extra dive letter with the destination of removable in Explorer or My Computer. You can now copy any file to it. Then walk to another computer and upload the file. I use it to take large files from work to home. It doesn't even hurt the camera if you try to use it as a camera with a large file in it. You just won't have as much storage space for pictures if you have a large file on it.

Who needs zip disks?

Just tried copying a 30Mb zip file from one PC to another using my QV3000 as a go-between, works great, I just needed the Casio CDROM for the second PC when it asked for the driver. This is seriously useful.

Another tip is to copy the USB driver from the CD to a floppy, and then just keep the floppy handy in case you use a new computer that needs the driver.