nothing much to share on your queries,
but this is what I found somewhere HERE
How to have a good experience checking the camera out in the store.
You should check the camera out before you buy. You should do this with any camera that you buy. Here are some tips which will allow you to give the camera a good check out in the store.
1) Bring your own NiMH batteries. Alkaline will not work. Most stores will not have a charged set. In fact at my local stores, NONE of the cameras ever have charged batteries.
2) Bring your own CF card so that you can take some shots home to look at them later. You really can't appreciate what the camera can do until you see it on a big screen.
3) THIS IS IMPORTANT! Adjust the diopter wheel on the left side of the electronic viewfinder so that you can see the screen clearly. The wheel isn't obvious, and there is report after report of people saying that the viewfinder was "blurry" because they didn't know that there was an adjustment.
4) The camera can't focus closer than 0.5 meters in non-macro mode. I watched a guy try to focus on a box on the counter about a foot away from him, then declare that the camera was "junk" and could not focus.
5) The macro mode can't focus farther than 0.5 M away.
6) You will be tempted to test the camera at full telephoto. Remember that not many cameras have a 200mm telephoto, and you have to hold the camera still to get it to focus fast. If you shake it around, the camera will take longer to focus.
7) If you get a camera that is messed up by other customers, I'd pick the "reset all" choice in the setup menu. It is common for cameras in the stores to be set to crazy modes or digital zoom.
8) If the image appears as a box in a box, you are in digital zoom mode. Press the mag button on ghe lower right on the back of the camera.
9) In record, press the menu button and confirm that the first choice on the first menu is AF mode set to AF single. Continuous focus mode will drive you crazy if you are just starting out.
10) Remember that if you point the camera at fluorescent lights or TVs in a store that you will see strobe effects in the viewfinder just like pointing a video camera at one of these devices
