Hello I am from India, and I am using this camera from 3 years, and while talking about the manual camera setting, then we can only change the ISO, white balance and exposure, because obviously it is not a dslr camera, so we can't really expect the proper manual settings in it, still if you are thinking to buy your first camera, then this is the best choice for you as it is much more cheaper.
After using it you may upgrade to the dslr cameras further to canon 1500d, which canon had launched recently in the category of the mirrorless cameras
Yes, you will get adequate amount of filters, effectsbut still if you concern photography, in which you have to play with the colors, light unfortunately, you can't do that in this variant
Talking about the optical zoom it is upto 35x, so its a positive thing, and you will get 65x by paying some more money