Canon G3 digital ?'s

[glewis1123]

I sent hubby out to get new digital camera and he came home with the Canon G3 - nice camera but lots of gizmos I'm not sure I'll use - Seems a little advanced for us but he insists it's perfect.

We leave the 18th and I won't have alot of time to play with it before then.

What would the best settings be for daytime and for nighttime or should I just leave it on the auto setting feature.

At least he had the foresight to buy back=up battery and a 256 mb card

Also, what is the device that you can download your pics to when you don't have a computer with you? Is it worth buying one?

Thanks for all advice

 

[helenabear]

I have had a G3 since April and I am still playing with it to get the right settings for everything. I mostly use the "P" (program) mode. It is similar to Auto but it does allow you to change the flash, exposure, adjust for the type of lighting you are in and a few others that I can't recall off hte top of my head.

For nighttime shots if you are referring to fireworks (or something like that where you won't use flash), sometimes the Program mode is okay but I usually try and stick with the shutter speed priority. I am still playing with that but for fireworks I think somewhere around a 1/15-1/30 is what I have bene playing with. I don't think I've gotten it right. The program mode makes for too long of a shutter speed and they come out all blurry for me (I admit my hands aren't that steady). If you are talking about night shots with people (flash used) I believe there is a night setting that I would use.

I will warn you that this is large and can be a pain to carry through the parks. I will also say I didn't need the second battery ever that I can recall. I don't use the LCD much at all and I can easily get a days use out of one battery (I took over 400 pictures a day) but if you don't have a laptop to back up on, I think the 256 would have gotten me about 600-800 pictures total (I had 3 128s that I reused each holding about 300-400 or so). This all depends on the settings though. I am not sure what the devices that you can download to are as I just take my laptop with me.

Have fun playing with it. It is a neat camera and I do love the quality of shots I do get (when I get the settings right).