A Beginner Needs Some Help...

[amamed1]

Hello everyone, I'm pretty new to the boards, but I was wondering if anyone could help me. I just got my first digital camera and need some help understanding the features.

The camera that I have is an Olympus SP-320, 7.1 MP, 3x optical and 5x digital zoom, it has full automatic and full manual settings, also has a bunch of different scenes to choose from.

Basically what I'm wondering is: what factors determine when to switch to manual controls, is there a standard way that you set the controls for different situations? For example: low light, fireworks, indoors, outdoors?

I have used the automatic feature to take some pictures of my kids around the house but they turned out very grainy. I'm not sure if I should have adjusted the manual controls to have a better image.

If anyone could help I would appreciate it very much, we are leaving for Disney World in 3 days and I would love to get some great shots.

Thanks.

 

[KaitlinsMom]

You mentioned that you have different scenes to choose from - Do you have an indoor, fireworks, kids, sports, etc? I would start with using those to take pictures. Then when you start to get comfortable with those and seeing how your camera works and how pictures look with those settings, then you may want to venture out into manual settings - But a good place to start is with the auto setting and using the different scene selections settings -

Have fun!

Karen

 

[DizneyNutz]

Try not to use digital zoom, because your pictures rarely come out desireable. As you are zooming in on something on your screen you should see your zoom bar. On the zoom bar you should see a dark bar across it letting you now when you are moving from optical to digital. Try to take your pictures on the left side of the bar for better quality photos. If you go across the bar to the right side you are in digital zoom.

 

[amamed1]

Thank you for the great tips, hopefully when I get back I'll have some good pics to post in my trip report.

Thanks again.

 

[KaitlinsMom]

Not sure if you have this on your camera or not, but on some camera's, you can turn the digital zoom off - That way, you don't have to worry if you start going into digital zoom - The quality just goes downhill if you use it -