I lost my instruction manual for my S5..the camera takes nice pics during the day but sometimes I get blurriness especially at night and when I zoom. I know it's not the S5, it's user error, but why is this happening? Also, the shutter lag when on Fireworks setting is making me frustrated.
Actually, it probably IS the camera. The S3/S5's a great camera, but its weakness is definitely hand-held night shots. The sensor is really too small for good night performance ... unfortunately, if the sensor was bigger you'd need a huge and expensive lens like the DSLR users do....
There are some tricks for getting "better" performance at night, but nothing makes the S3/S5 *good* at it.
Generally speaking, try this: switch to Av mode and set the largest aperture you can (smallest number) for the zoom your at (2.7 at wide angle - 3.5 at tele), bump the ISO up as high as necessary to get the speed you want (400 is "good-enough" with Noiseware, and 800/1600 is tolerable with Noiseware but it will be VERY grainy when you first see it).
If your subject is spot lit, you can get a bit of an edge by switching to spot metering and aiming at the brightest spot on the subject; the camera will use only that reading and will usually pick a much-faster shutter speed ... your backgrounds will be underexposed, but that's usually OK as they're usually just darkness, anyway.
Also, that's not *shutter lag* on the Fireworks setting ... it's exactly a 2 second shutter
speed.
Shutter lag is the time between when you press the button and the camera *starts* taking the picture ... the S3/S5 has very low shutter lag, it's almost instantaneous ... however, in Fireworks mode, *every* shot is 2 seconds long. If you time it, 2 seconds is about the right length of time from initial burst to "flowering" (if you will) of most fireworks.
However, you NEED a tripod if you're going to take shots with such long shutter speeds.
If you want faster shutter speeds for fireworks, you have to set them in Manual mode so you can set Av, Tv and ISO exactly like you want them. I've had decent luck with Av=2.7, Tv=1/10 or 1/20 and ISO 200. The pics are usually pretty sharp, but they lack the fully-realized beauty that only comes from a long shutter speed....
It's the difference between this, one of mine with settings set similar to above:
And, this, a long shutter speed pic by someone else (a Photobucket user named BabyBubbleBoo):
!!!
