Advice for a novice?

[k_fawver]

Reading through all of these threads is starting to become a bit overwhelming. there are so many truly talented people here that take BEAUTIFUL photographs. I'll be the first to admit that I know nothing about photography. I just do my best to take a decent looking picture.

That being said...I just purchased a new digital point and shoot -- a Sony Cybershot H10 8.1 MP with 10x zoom. This is by far the best digital camera I've evera had (please don't laugh at that...lol) The quality is really good too. the only thing is, with my upcoming trip, I really would like to learn some basic pointers to help me take better pictures, such as of fireworks and photos in the dark. I"ve looked through the other threads and it's just so over my head. It actually reminded me a lot of my physics class...lol.

Does anyone have some basic advice? Or would I be better off just reading the manual? Thanks so much

 

[tinkbutt]

from quickly reading the specs it seems you have a night setting on the camera that "says" it should take good picks with virtually no light?! now if this is true ??I am not sure ??? For your night shots just make sure to set the ISO at a higher # like 1600-3200. it says 3200 is your highest ISO.

I would also like to say that with a higher ISO you might get more noise or pixels in your shot. take a few test shots with different ISOs and maybe one with the night setting on and one with it off! you need to really know your camera to be able to take great shots! I have told many people that you can have a totally automatic camera and just push the button but until you understand your options you are just going to point and shoot. this might be what your after and you'll get good photos, but if you read the manual once over and get a few more tips you can have GREAT PHOTOGRAPHS!!!

the ISO settings can probably be found in your main menu options on the LCD screen. with ISO you should remember the higher the speed the less light you need the lower the speed the more light you will need!

I tend to shoot 100-200 during the day but I am one of those people who doesn't like noise/grain in my photos I like nice crisp photos.


oh one last thing a great photograph can be ruined by being the slightest bit out of focus. So please test your Auto focus and see what is really IN focus and what isn't!

hope this helped?

 

[k_fawver]

Thank you so much for your reply. It was really nice of you to take the time to look at the specs for my camera. I have taken some night time shots recently and overall they were ok. I'd just like them to be better. I had no trouble seeing the main focus of the photograph, but the background was very dark.

i do remember seeing a way to manually change the ISO on the camera. I had no idea what that was until coming to this forum. Thanks so much for your advice. I'll get my manual out and practice some shots

 

[handicap18]

The best thing you can do right now is practice.

There is a "fireworks" setting on the H10. I'm guessing that is used when your holding the camera and snapping shots. That is one way to get some shots and that feature does an OK job.

If you'd like to get the big bright bursts with the long trails, then you'll need some sort of support for the camera like a tripod. You can even use just a small little table top tripod and set it up on top of a trashcan (all the trashcan's around Disney have flat tops). You can turn the Dial on the top right to M. Then you'll have to learn how to adjust the ISO (film speed), aperture (f/stop) and shutter speed. This info can be found in the owners manual. For night shots and fireworks, you'll want a low ISO (100 or 200), an aperture of around f/8 and the shutter speed would be between 2 and 8 seconds.. These same settings can be used to take most night shots around the parks (ie: Tomorrowland, the buildings around World Showcase, Spaceship Earth, The Hat and/or ToT at DHS, etc...). Again you'll need a tripod. If you don't have a remote shutter release, then set the camera to the self-timer, 2 seconds. Press the shutter. Using the self-timer will give the camera 2 seconds to stop moving from when you pressed the shutter and not give you a blurred image from the camera moving.

You can practice these type of shots on your own house or maybe there are some cool buildings in your town/city. Play around with the settings to get an idea of how things work. Make notes if you have to to help yourself.

Above everything else.............. HAVE FUN!!!!