digital camera tips?

[ozziewags]

I just purchased a Canon S30 and am pretty new at this. Can anyone give me any tips so I can get the most out of my pictures during my upcoming trip? I especially need help in getting good night pictures of the parades and Osbourne Lights. Do I just set the night vision button? Thanks to all who contributed tips for my purchase!!!

Carol

 

[helenabear]

Carol, I have an older version of your camera so I am not entirely sure exaclty what you can do with yours. I have had better luck with night time (fireworks, Spectromagic, Osborne Lights) shots with a fast shutter setting and setting the exposure up. The night time setting seems to allow for a slower shutter to take in all the light possible which will lead me to blurr the pictures because I don't have a steady hand. Again I am not sure what your camera does, and I believe it has more setting options I wished I had. Sorry I couldn't help more.

 

[TheLionKing]

I am not familar with that camera.

I may suggest youpractice taking pictures of Christmas lights around your neighborhood and see how they turn out.

Does the autoexposure control give you the kind of pictures you want or do you need to take manual control. Autoexposure may try to make the whole scene brighter rather than just leaving the lights well exposed. You may have to learn what different kind of metering modes you have.

As for the parades, during the day, you should be fine. If it is a night parade and you are in a darker part of the parade with little supplemental lighting, you may have to resort to flash. Remember the flash is really only good at distances of maybe 10 feet, so wait for the action to come to you rather than taking pictures of subjects at a great distance because the flash may be useless.

I have a general rule with the point and shoot digitals..... let the subject come to you or you move to the subject rather than relying on the zoom.

 

[ozziewags]

Thanks Helenabear. I know how to set shutter speed up, but how do I set exposure? Mine has exposure compensation and white balance. I tried taking pictures of my xmas tree in the dark and all I got were lights, with no background at all! Need some more exposure? Thanks.

Carol

 

[ozziewags]

Thanks Lion King. I went outside and took pics of lights on night vision setting and they were great. Guess I won't worry about not getting pics of the nighttime activities. Maybe I can do this after all.

 

[helenabear]

I believe on the Canons they all have a "W/B" button. There you can change two things (unless this is totally different and if it is then I apologize) The first will give you a bar that has a -2 on the left and a 2 on the right. By bringing it towards the positive you will lighten the picture. Obviously the other way will make it dark. Also I found that if you go and put it on the "cloudy" setting that brings more lighting in too. I think for most night shots where I couldn't use a flash (Spectromagic, fireworks & castle shots) I had it set up on the fast shutter, cloudy and somewhere between 0 & 2. Not very technical I know but I played a lot and found that worked great for my camera.

 

[Zurg]

Dave is righty on the money - go play. Reading the manual and the reviews of the camera at the digi cam web pages wouldn't hurt.

 

[ozziewags]

Yes, Elaine, I have those buttons, but didn't quite get it when I read it. You guys make it much easier. Thanks all.

 

[helenabear]

I do agree with the other suggestion of "just play" That's how I was able to find out what settings worked best for me for different situations. I will even take test shots once I get there to see what works best. You wouldn't believe how many shots I have of fireworks from this summer just to test those out

Have fun playing!