Canon S3

[alan]

I have to say, I don't like the way that the monorail trains are painted these days. Looks to me as if they've been left overnight in a dodgy neighbourhood, and have suffered as a result

regards,
/alan

 

[hjd0411]

Thanks Alan - they look great! I have been wondering if PhotoShop was for me - I am so new to all of this, I just wonder if it would be worth the cost. But then I see the results you got, and it sets my mind racing..!!!
I have to agree with you re the monorail, too. They look a bit "messy"!!

Heather

 

[alan]

A very fine place to start would be Picasa, from http://picasa.google.com/ It's free and can do a large number of basic edits on your pictures...

regards,
/alan

 

[bumbershoot]

Bags.

Well, I thought those Crumplers looked really cool, and ordered one from REI. They only had the 3 million dollar bag, and while I knew it would be big it was BIG for the S3. I got the one that is brown on the outside and green on the inside, and the colors are just heinous to my eyes.

So I returned it tonight. Earlier today we were up at Rick Steves store (he's the PBS "Europe through the Backdoor" show guy) and after looking around at bags of his that I *thought* would be padded but weren't, I knew I had to look elsewhere. So later while at REI I looked through all of their bags, and ended up going home with an REI brand "Erin City Bag". It's lightly padded, even on the bottom, which is better than the other bags! And it's not horribly stiff and scratchy like the Crumpler (which I sooooo wanted to like).

I hope it works out!

 

[hjd0411]

A very fine place to start would be Picasa, from http://picasa.google.com/ It's free and can do a large number of basic edits on your pictures...

regards,
/alan

Thanks Alan - I've got Picasa, but I obviously haven't looked too far into it!! I have some time this week, so I'll have a bit of a study of it! Thanks so much for your help and the photos - I'm going to download them now!

Heather

 

[ghost1000]

Well I've ended up ordering a Crumpler "Pretty Boy" bag - it is a UK bag but someone had it up on eBay new in a neighboring state. I think it will be just about perfect size for my needs - here is hoping it gets here in time.

 

[DisneyMom14]

Thanks Alan - I've got Picasa, but I obviously haven't looked too far into it!! I have some time this week, so I'll have a bit of a study of it! Thanks so much for your help and the photos - I'm going to download them now!

Heather

I had downloaded Picasa a while back but never installed it. I finally took some time last night to play with it and WOW! Boy, combining Picasa with Noiseware and you can make some pretty bad shots worth saving! Thanks for the tips everyone!

 

[seventyone]

Hi everyone.
I have been a lurker on the Photography board for a while. Over the weekend DH surprised me with an S3 IS as an early Christmas gift ! We are leaving for Disney World next week and although I plan on reading as much of the manual as possible, I was wondering if anyone could help me with some specific questions.

1. What are the best settings for the nighttime shots, whether they are of the castle or the parades? And how have everyones nighttime shots come out? I know with my last digital camera they were not so good, in fact really I probably I should not have even bothered taking them. Does the flash give you enough light say if you take a pic of the castle from Main Street?

2. What are the best settings for the fireworks? I swore I saw something about shooting fireworks when I thumbed thru the manual, but now I can't find it?!

I hope someone can help me!
Thank you so much!!

 

[fla4fun]

Hey all! I'm leaving in approx 37 hours for 5 days/4 nights! The memory card has been formatted and the S5's batteries are charging as we speak!

I want to ask really quickly how you all carry your camera in the parks? I normally carry a Baggallini messenger (you know, the nerdy lime green one??) but I'm a little nervous putting my S5 in it w/out extra protection. My only other option at the moment is my (fairly) small Lowepro camera bag that will hold plenty but is a little awkward to carry.

Opinions?

Wnen I bought my S1, it came in a bag of bubble wrap. I kept the bubble wrap bag and just put the camera in the bubble wrap, and put that in whatever bag I was carrying at the time. It worked great. I've decided to do the same with my new S5 (although it didn't come in a bubble wrap bag, I was able to track one down of the right size). I am carrying an Overland Equipment Donner bag currently, and if it's going to be a rainy day, I take a large ziploc bag and line the Donner, then slip the bubble wrap bag down in there and zip it closed.

 

[Amy]

Please don't think me rude, but I tried a little editing of some of your photographs in Photoshop Elements 4.0 and wonder if you might be able to use some similar techniques to "recover" some of the photographs that you dont think you'll get to keep?

Noise reduction, curves (using "SuperCurve" plugin) and slight sharpening for local contrast enhancement

Curves

/alan

Hi Alan! I have Elements 4 and I really like what you did with Heather's pictures. I also have Noiseware, so I understand how that works. But what do you mean about "curves"? I see that you used some kind of plug-in, so I guess that means that curves isn't standard on Elements? What exactly does it do? I couldn't really see a diff. between Heather's castle photos. Thanks!

Hi everyone.
I have been a lurker on the Photography board for a while. Over the weekend DH surprised me with an S3 IS as an early Christmas gift ! We are leaving for Disney World next week and although I plan on reading as much of the manual as possible, I was wondering if anyone could help me with some specific questions.

1. What are the best settings for the nighttime shots, whether they are of the castle or the parades? And how have everyones nighttime shots come out? I know with my last digital camera they were not so good, in fact really I probably I should not have even bothered taking them. Does the flash give you enough light say if you take a pic of the castle from Main Street?

Hi seventyone and welcome to the S3 family! We just got back from WDW late Mon. night and I'm still in the process of figuring out which photos to share with everyone. I'll have some current examples soon, but I wanted to answer some of your questions before your post gets buried.

For nighttime shots, you have a couple of options. There's NightScene and NightSnapshot on the dial. These are good when you have a stationary subject. I used NightSnapshot to get a photo of my DH in front of the Christmas tree in the WL lobby. The flash goes off to light the person and the shutter stays open a little longer to pick up the tree in the background. (You have to tell the person not to move after the flash goes off or else they'll be blurry.)

As far as the castle on main street, don't bother with a flash. I don't think there's flash made that's strong enough for that! Besides, a flash would wash out all the cool colors on the castle at night. You need to use one of the night settings, but you'll also need a tripod.

I've had great results using the Sports setting for my night shots. Unfortunately, the camera automatically boosts the ISO real high, so you'll have to use Noiseware on your photos, but they tend to come out pretty nice, even hand-held.

2. What are the best settings for the fireworks? I swore I saw something about shooting fireworks when I thumbed thru the manual, but now I can't find it?!

There's a fireworks setting on the S3; I've used it, but it has such a long shutter that I really didn't like the results. Now I just use the Sports setting and end up with some really nice shots.

Like I said, I'm still figuring out which photos to upload, and I need to run a whole bunch thru noiseware. I'll post them as soon as I can. Good luck! You'll really enjoy the camera - just get out there and try a bunch of diff. settings to see what works for you.

 

[alan]

Hi Alan! I have Elements 4 and I really like what you did with Heather's pictures. I also have Noiseware, so I understand how that works. But what do you mean about "curves"? I see that you used some kind of plug-in, so I guess that means that curves isn't standard on Elements? What exactly does it do? I couldn't really see a diff. between Heather's castle photos. Thanks!

Hi Amy,

What I used was "SmartCurve" (not supercurve) from http://free.pages.at/easyfilter/smartcurve.html - it's a free plugin for Elements 4.0.

I was trying to darken the sky, to enhance the contrast with the fireworks, while preserving the foreground details (trees, castle, etc). I confess I didn't do a great job, and should really have used masked out the sky to get it done properly - it was just a quick hack.

regards,
/alan

 

[Amy]

Hi Amy,

What I used was "SmartCurve" (not supercurve) from http://free.pages.at/easyfilter/smartcurve.html - it's a free plugin for Elements 4.0.

I was trying to darken the sky, to enhance the contrast with the fireworks, while preserving the foreground details (trees, castle, etc). I confess I didn't do a great job, and should really have used masked out the sky to get it done properly - it was just a quick hack.

regards,
/alan

Well, all that was clear as mud to me! I think I need to learn more of the Photoshop basics before I branch out into this stuff, beginning with learning how to read a histogram. Thanks anyway!

 

[Amy]

Seventyone - I finally got some pix uploaded to Photobucket so I can give you some examples.

Turns out I was wrong when I said I used Night Snapshot for pix of the WL lobby; I looked at the exif data, and I used NightScene - it's the one that's right on the dial. There's another Night setting that's under "SCN" on the dial - that's the one I did NOT use.

Anyway, here's the WL lobby using NightScene, bracing the camera against one of the logs:

Here's a photo of Illuminations. I shot it using the Sports mode, bracing the camera on the railing. I ran it through Noiseware:

Here's the photo before using Noiseware so you can see what the high ISO of Sports mode does to the photos:

 

[jpeka65844]

Wow Amy! I took Illuminations photos on 12/1 that look very much like your pre-Noiseware photos. I also took w/sports mode. Here's hoping Noiseware will do the same for me!

There's also hope for my Wishes pictures as well! I can't wait to improve them!

 

[seventyone]

Amy,
Thanks for the tips and for sharing your photos.....they came out wonderful!! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I get some really good ones!
Thanks again!!!

 

[ghost1000]

Wow thanks for mentioning Noiseware - I just downloaded the demo plugin for Mac photoshop and it seems to be much better than Noise Ninja on a few test pictures. Looks like I know what I will be buying myself for Christmas

 

[Amy]

I have some more photos to share, and since everyone is curious about night and fireworks shots, here you go! They were all taken using Sports Mode and were hand-held and run thru Noiseware. Hope you like them!

Toward the end of Wishes, they turn the icicles back on:

 

[hellokitty86]

Hi everyone!

After drooling over this thread and all the gorgeous pics for months, I finally bought the S5 tonight!! I am a little nervous- this camera seems more advanced than what I'm used to. We are going on a cruise this month and I'm very excited about being able to use it for that!

Any tips on what is the best type of rechargeable batteries to buy, best camera bag, etc? Any other tips for an amature photographer? This camera (and the manual) seems very intimidating!

 

[hellokitty86]

Amy, those pics are breathtaking!!!!

 

[LPZ_Stitch!]

Fantastic job, Amy ... LOOOOVE that last castle pic!!