NEED HELP!! New Canon Powershot A620

[anne930]

Help!!

We have a new Canon Powershot A620. I'm doing OK with daytime and inside pictures, but am having difficulty taking good night time pictures, especially with the automatic settings - don't get much practice either to really learn how. Anyway, we just planned a quick trip to the World and I would love to get some decent night time parade, castle and fireworks shots. I'm a real "camera" dummy. I know how to make the manual settings, but have no idea of when to set what. Anyone have any advice that I can follow??

 

[KaitlinsMom]

There is a "fireworks" setting on the camera, so you can use that - A setting on the camera that I tend to use a lot is the "pets and kids" setting - and you can turn the flash off with that setting to get decent pictures of the castle - Sounds like you are pretty new with using digital cameras, so I am not sure if you want to use settings where you are dealing with aperature or shutter speed settings - That is why the "kids/pets" may be best for a lot of your pictures.

Play around with the camera before you go. It's a great camera that you will really enjoy using - Have a great trip!

 

[Laura]

I have this camera, too! It takes great photos.

No matter what camera, night shots are very very very hard to do, especially of moving objects like a parade. Honestly, I'm not sure the A620 can do a whole lot at a nighttime parade--it only goes up to 400 ISO and the flash goes about 10 feet, so it's hard to capture motion in little light. But I didn't see any night parades, so I didn't try to take those photos on our last trip. Maybe others have advice on that?

Shots of the castle aren't so hard because it's not going to move, but you'll need to either set the camera on a flat surface like a trashcan or use a tripod--I have one from http://www.joby.com/ that can wrap around things or act as a mini tripod. I would take your camera out of auto, as it will probably try to set the ISO to 400, which will produce a grainy pic. Instead, I would set it to program mode, turn the flash off and put it at a lower ISO like 50 or 100 or so to get a good quality image that isn't grainy. Your finger pressing down will probably shake the camera a bit and blur your image, so set the timer so it will take the pic a few seconds after you press the button. The camera will figure out the shutter speed and aperture and expose the photo properly.

As for fireworks, here's a good how-to:
http://www.nyip.com/tips/current/digfirewks.php
Basically, with fireworks, you need to anticipate the shot more, and you need long exposures to get the trails of the fireworks properly.

 

[anne930]

There is a "fireworks" setting on the camera, so you can use that - A setting on the camera that I tend to use a lot is the "pets and kids" setting - and you can turn the flash off with that setting to get decent pictures of the castle - Sounds like you are pretty new with using digital cameras, so I am not sure if you want to use settings where you are dealing with aperature or shutter speed settings - That is why the "kids/pets" may be best for a lot of your pictures.

Play around with the camera before you go. It's a great camera that you will really enjoy using - Have a great trip!

KaitlinsMom, thanks for the advice. I've only had 1 opportunity to shoot fireworks with this camera - I used the fireworks setting and I was disappointed - but I didn't have a tripod, so that may have been my problem. I haven't used the pets and kids setting - would never have even thought of that - I'll give it a try, though. Thanks!

 

[anne930]

I have this camera, too! It takes great photos.

No matter what camera, night shots are very very very hard to do, especially of moving objects like a parade. Honestly, I'm not sure the A620 can do a whole lot at a nighttime parade--it only goes up to 400 ISO and the flash goes about 10 feet, so it's hard to capture motion in little light. But I didn't see any night parades, so I didn't try to take those photos on our last trip. Maybe others have advice on that?

Shots of the castle aren't so hard because it's not going to move, but you'll need to either set the camera on a flat surface like a trashcan or use a tripod--I have one from http://www.joby.com/ that can wrap around things or act as a mini tripod. I would take your camera out of auto, as it will probably try to set the ISO to 400, which will produce a grainy pic. Instead, I would set it to program mode, turn the flash off and put it at a lower ISO like 50 or 100 or so to get a good quality image that isn't grainy. Your finger pressing down will probably shake the camera a bit and blur your image, so set the timer so it will take the pic a few seconds after you press the button. The camera will figure out the shutter speed and aperture and expose the photo properly.

As for fireworks, here's a good how-to:
http://www.nyip.com/tips/current/digfirewks.php
Basically, with fireworks, you need to anticipate the shot more, and you need long exposures to get the trails of the fireworks properly.

Laura, thanks for your advice too! That tripod is too cool!! Does it really work? I will definately try the low ISO setting And I have just figured out how to use the timer delay, so I can experiment with that too!!

Wish me luck!!

 

[Laura]

Yes, the tripod really works, and it's surprisingly sturdy. It's very light and small, so it wouldn't be too much to carry in a bag. It takes some fiddling to get the legs very straight after you bend them, though.

 

[gary403]

Yes, the tripod really works, and it's surprisingly sturdy. It's very light and small, so it wouldn't be too much to carry in a bag. It takes some fiddling to get the legs very straight after you bend them, though.

Laura,are you using the large or small one?

 

[Laura]

The small one, for compact cameras.