Canon S3

[SplshMtn99]

Awesome! Thanks Amy. I remember those days of marching band competitions. My favorite time in high school. (I played clarinet, alto sax & oboe.) But marching in the rain is never fun.

My mom has a few pictures from way back when....but I'm just a dot on the field. Only I know which one is me. Your sons are really lucky to have pictures of them zoomed in.

I forgot all about the foliage feature. duh. Still haven't looked at the book. I'll have to take some of those tomorrow before we head to fireworks.

And as suspected, DH is having trouble with camera. I'm going to have to work with him. I just don't know what he does ....but his pictures of the cat always come out dark...and he's using Auto. Perhaps this is why I'm always the one taking pictures.

I have to decide by tomorrow night if keeping camera. My 2wks return window is almost up. I wasn't camera shopping at all....but my dad's camera died...and stupid me offered him our Olympus C750UZ if I bought a new one. Well, my dad's been bugging me for the camera so he can take his fish pictures. lol I just didn't want to give ours away & then not like the new one. I'm just concerned still with some of the darker indoor shots DH seems to be ending up with.

 

[Amy]

Joanne - for your DH's dark indoor pictures - is he remembering to pull up the flash? I was taking pictures of my dogs and they all kept coming out dark and I couldn't figure out why! I knew I didn't turn the flash off, and then duh!! With this camera, you have to pull up the flash. My old camera the flash was always there, ready to go unless you actually turned it off on purpose. With the S3, you have to pull it up and turn it ON. Geez, I must have taken about 10-12 pix until I finally figured it out.

 

[SplshMtn99]

Joanne - for your DH's dark indoor pictures - is he remembering to pull up the flash? I was taking pictures of my dogs and they all kept coming out dark and I couldn't figure out why! I knew I didn't turn the flash off, and then duh!! With this camera, you have to pull up the flash. My old camera the flash was always there, ready to go unless you actually turned it off on purpose. With the S3, you have to pull it up and turn it ON. Geez, I must have taken about 10-12 pix until I finally figured it out.

We both have a habit of pulling flash up when turning on the camera, because we had to do that with last camera...so that's a good thing. I've got to look at the book to see how to force fill flash, because he has habit of taking pics of cat sitting in the window....and she's got black fur...so you get cat silhoutte photos.

Its really just going to be a matter or re-training DH that AUTO on this camera in the house can be an issue....and tell him to try the indoor mode. Something I haven't done myself either.

Again....he really doesn't take many pics...but I think its because he takes bad pics. If I can help him figure out what he's doing wrong so often, maybe he'll enjoy it more. This camera is way more than he needs....thats for sure. But its my toy mostly.

But I must say....it takes AWESOME outdoor photos.

One of my favorite things to do when bored, is roam here.
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/canon/powershot_s3_is All photos taken with S3 IS. Click a photo & it will take you to the album.....or click more after where it says "random" to get even more. There are some GREAT galleries in there & of course alot of average ones too. sigh....

 

[SplshMtn99]

I've been playing around with indoor shots tonight. Gotten much better by forcing the flash instead of auto flash &/or indoor mode.

Now, I've got to work on those WDW indoor "no flash allowed" photos.

 

[pandamom]

After reading these boards for awhile I purchased the Canon S3 on Friday. I am very happy with it but have 1 silly question: How can you tell how much room/unused photos are left on the memory card? I know I can guestimate how many are left but all my other digital cameras (olympus, hp and kodak) tell you how many pics are left open on the card for whatever settings the camera is currently at.

Thanks!
Bonnie

 

[robertchance]

Did you read the manual to see if that question is answered in there?

 

[Amy]

Hmmm, that's one thing I haven't figured out yet on my S3. I'm sure it's in the manual somewhere. DH has a Canon A95 and he has the display set to show how much room is left on his memory card, so I'm sure there's some way to do it on the S3. When I got my S3, Best Buy had a 2GB SD card on sale for $49.99, so I know I have room for plenty of shots!

 

[pandamom]

Did you read the manual to see if that question is answered in there?

Yes, I've actually read and searched the manuals and if the info is there I missed it somehow.

 

[WDWAurora]

Any tips? Unless we are in perfect lighting conditions, with all overhead lights on, etc. our indoor shots seem to come out blurry or grainy. Is there a setting that would help with this? We're really happy with the camera, but not with its indoor performance. We don't have overhead lights in our current residence, so just lamps, and we get grainy shots everytime.

BTW-we've both read the manual and still aren't sure what would help.

Thanks for any advice/experience you can provide!

 

[handicap18]

Check out the end of page 3 of this link. They had been discussing taking indoor shots with the S3 IS.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1235546

 

[Jeanne B]

My S3 automatically tells me how many pictures are left on the LCD screen, I never changed any settings so I'm assuming it defaults. I'll have to take a closer look when I get home tonight and see if I can figure out what you need to do to get it to display. Have you searched through the menu settings on the LCD of the camera?

 

[matthew_hull]

After reading these boards for awhile I purchased the Canon S3 on Friday. I am very happy with it but have 1 silly question: How can you tell how much room/unused photos are left on the memory card? I know I can guestimate how many are left but all my other digital cameras (olympus, hp and kodak) tell you how many pics are left open on the card for whatever settings the camera is currently at.

Thanks!
Bonnie

It is in the manual. I just downloaded an S3 manual from the Canon web site, and on Page 18 it explains how to display information on the LCD screen. "Shooting Info" it calls it. The remaining shots will appear on the bottom right.

 

[Groucho]

Blurry means that the exposure is too long, and grainy (actually "noisy") means that the ISO is too high. Unfortunately, you're kind of stuck with one or the other.

The aperture makes a difference too, but in this case, that's probably mostly irrelevant, as in anything but full manual mode, the camera will likely already setting it as low as possible in a low-light situation. I assume that you can manually set all three (I'm not familiar with the camera in question, but most any decent camera nowadays can do those).

You can use shutter priority mode and manually select a fast shutter, this will cut down on blurs but up the ISO level, which means more noise.

Or, you can manually set the ISO level, which will force the shutter to slow, which means blurrier pictures.

If there's not enough light to get the ISO level where you want at a shutter speed that is fast enough to prevent blurring (and the aperture is already at its lowest number), then you either have to use the flash or use a tripod and tell the subjects to stand very still.

Unfortunately, good low-light performance is the achille's heel of most any digital camera - no camera can take pictures as easily or cleanly in a dark indoor environment at it can in a bright outdoor environment.

 

[WDWAurora]

Check out the end of page 3 of this link. They had been discussing taking indoor shots with the S3 IS.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1235546

Thanks. I watched that thread closely at first, then stopped.

Groucho, thanks for the info. The pictures are usually one or the other, so we could try manually adjusting one or the other.

 

[pandamom]

Thank you everyone -- I see it now!!!! Honestly I don't know how I missed it -- I swear I read every page of the manauls and think I overloaded my poor brain. I know I probably won't use half the features on the camera but I wanted to know exactly what it could do (I love the color swap feature but doubt I'll ever actually use it and probably won't utilize the manaul settings much either.) Once again THANK YOU for your help!!!!!!

 

[SplshMtn99]

So mad at myself. I thought the fireworks were tonight...they were last night.

 

[grlpwrd]

Thanks for the incredible pictures....

I better read my handbook to fully utilize my camera.

 

[Amy]

Wow! I found that setting on my camera. I have a 2GB memory card, and with the camera at the highest resolution, it says it can hold 730 shots.

That's about 4 or 5 days at WDW!

 

[wdwmom2]

Thinking about purchasing the S3. For those of you who own one, what is the highest that you have enlarged a photo and not lost any quality?

 

[Furgus]

Don't know a lot about that camera, but I have a 20X30 print on my wall at home taken from a 4mp Kodak Easy share camera. It is all about perception. You view a bigger print from farther away then a 4X6 so I would say go ahead and print it big, and see how it looks to you from a distance. My print looks great from 2 feet away. Not so great at 6 inches.