Photography Board Friends, I Must Confess..

[dmslush]

Okay, I have to confess some of my sins. About 4 years ago, I purchased an Olympus Camedia C-4000 Zoom digital Camera. This camera takes amazing pictures, at least in my opinion and for what I need it for.

I must also confess that I technology challenged. For 4 years, I have only used the camera to point and shoot. I didn't 'mess' with any of the settings for fear that I couldn't fix them back to normal. The only thing that I actually touched was the zoom and the flash. Everything else, left it alone!

But, this year when we go to disney, I want to really use my camera. I paid a decent price for all of these bells and whistles, so now I want to use them!! I have the manual, but it doesn't explain a lot to me. I just tells me what each icon represents.. but it doesn't go into detail about what the function really does.

So, first thing is first.. I am ashamed to admit, I don't have a clue what aperture means. I keep hearing everyone on here refer to it, but I am clueless. What is it and why do people change it? So, that is my first question! Let's get that taken care of before I move on to others!!

 

[tinksdad]

Aperture - A hole in the lens that adjusts in diameter, similar to the way the pupil of an eye works. This controls the amount of light reaching the film or CCD to record an image. Every different diameter opening has a number which indicates the size - it equals the focal length of the lens divided by the diameter of the aperture. These numbers are also called stops, or f/number.

Photogs control the amount of light on a picture with the Aperture and the Shutter speed. Imagine the act of filling a bucket of water is similar to taking a picture (bucket is the CCD & water is the light), the Shutter speed would be the water pressure or the speed of the water from the hose. The Aperture would be the size of the hose. Larger hose = smaller aperture numbers.

 

[boBQuincy]

Confession is good for the soul, and you should find plenty of absolution on this board!

Aperture is the size of the hole in the lens that determines how much light is let in. The f number is a fraction, the size of the hole divided by the focal length of the lens.

Tinksdad's water analogy is a good way to look at the relationship between light, aperture, and shutter speed. I usually think of the shutter speed as the amount of time you leave the faucet open.

For a really good explanation of these terms and what they do, read Ansel Adams "The Camera".

 

[ukcatfan]

You should find out what aperture on your camera creates the sharpest pictures. It us almost never the highest or lowest and is usually somewhere in the middle. You will have to experiment to find it. Then try to keep it around that setting. You will eventually get the "feel" and know what to do. On a P&S digital, the depth of field is not much of an issue, but with a smaller aperture you will have more depth in focus. Unless you are focusing on something very close, it is difficult to create background blur with a P&S. It is very confusing at first because the aperture is a fraction. That means that f/4 is actually larger(more open) than f/8.

Then you need to practice to see how slow of a shutter speed you can use and not cause motion blur from the camera not being held completely still like a tripod does. Practice at different focal lengths (more or less zoom). The more you zoom in, the quicker the shutter needs to be to prevent this. There is more to it than just those two things, but if you try to do too much at once, you will get frustrated.

If you have the time, pick up a self help book. I believe there is one called Understanding Exposure that gets very good reviews.

Kevin

 

[dmslush]

Okay, when I turn my camera on, the view screen on the back has several things showing on it, what do these things mean:

A (in the upper left corner) F2.8 1/30 0.0

Then on the bottom it has


62 (how many pictures I have left on my card) HQ 2288X1712

 

[ukcatfan]

A (in the upper left corner) F2.8 1/30 0.0

The f2.8 is the aperture. That is probably as wide open as it gets (i.e. less depth of field but allowing a quicker shutter speed). The 1/30 is the shutter speed. That is 1/30th of a second. That may sound quick, but there can still be motion blur with that speed. The 0.0 is probably the exposure compensation, but I cannot say for sure.

Once you start figuring this stuff out, then you should learn to change the ISO value. For now, I would say leave that on auto.

Kevin

 

[Master Mason]

Okay, when I turn my camera on, the view screen on the back has several things showing on it, what do these things mean:

A (in the upper left corner) F2.8 1/30 0.0

Then on the bottom it has


62 (how many pictures I have left on my card) HQ 2288X1712

The f2.8 is the appature, 2.8 is pretty far open. 1/30 would be the shutter speed, which is 1/30th of a second. Not sure what he rest of the numbers are.

 

[ukcatfan]

Then on the bottom it has

HQ 2288X1712

The HQ is the quality and the numbers are the pixel size. For example, your motitor may be 1024x768. I believe that your quality setting can be set higher. I believe it goes to SHQ on an Olympus. You will know it is higher quality if the number of pics available goes down. With memory being so cheap, there is no reason not to shoot at the best quality.

Kevin

 

[dmslush]

.

Once you start figuring this stuff out, then you should learn to change the ISO value. For now, I would say leave that on auto.

Kevin

I know how to change that.. not sure what it is, but it has AUTO, 100, 200, 400. All I know is that at night, my pictures look better on 400.

The HQ is the quality and the numbers are the pixel size. For example, your motitor may be 1024x768. I believe that your quality setting can be set higher. I believe it goes to SHQ on an Olympus. You will know it is higher quality if the number of pics available goes down. With memory being so cheap, there is no reason not to shoot at the best quality.

It will go up to TIFF.. that changes my pictures left on this card from 62 to 5. That seems a little extreme to me? The options that it gives me are:

TIFF
SHQ
HQ
SQ1
SQ2

 

[Master Mason]

I know how to change that.. not sure what it is, but it has AUTO, 100, 200, 400. All I know is that at night, my pictures look better on 400.



It will go up to TIFF.. that changes my pictures left on this card from 62 to 5. That seems a little extreme to me? The options that it gives me are:

TIFF
SHQ
HQ
SQ1
SQ2

Tiff is a loseless format thats why it drops so much. SHQ is the highest jpeg setting you have. And unless your doing a ton of post processing, it is what I would shoot at. If your doing a lot of post processing, you might want to concider Tiff, as it is the closest you have to RAW.

 

[rtphokie]

Pictures are worth 1k words, 2 pictures should be worth at least 2k

 

[Scottl]

Pictures are worth 1k words, 2 pictures should be worth at least 2k

Why does the last picture at F5.6 look cloudy? 5.6 should have the flowers in focus and the background blurry but not ecessarily any lighter. Maybe it is and the picture is too small or my eyes are too bad.

 

[rtphokie]

Why does the last picture at F5.6 look cloudy? 5.6 should have the flowers in focus and the background blurry but not ecessarily any lighter. Maybe it is and the picture is too small or my eyes are too bad.

It's like 60-70 pixels wide. Hard to get much detail in there. I think it' smore to show the amount of light available to the sensor in each aperture setting.

 

[ukcatfan]

I know how to change that.. not sure what it is, but it has AUTO, 100, 200, 400. All I know is that at night, my pictures look better on 400.

Going back to film days, do you remember buying a certain speed of film? That is the ISO. The 100 is the least sensitive so it needs either a wider aperture or a longer shutter speed to get the proper exposure. The problem is that the higher you go, the more noise you get. It is a grainy look. On most digital cameras, the highest setting is one of those "use it only if there is no other way to get the pic."

Kevin

 

[jann1033]

Okay, I have to confess some of my sins. About 4 years ago, I purchased an Olympus Camedia C-4000 Zoom digital Camera. This camera takes amazing pictures, at least in my opinion and for what I need it for.

I must also confess that I technology challenged. For 4 years, I have only used the camera to point and shoot. I didn't 'mess' with any of the settings for fear that I couldn't fix them back to normal. The only thing that I actually touched was the zoom and the flash. Everything else, left it alone!

But, this year when we go to disney, I want to really use my camera. I paid a decent price for all of these bells and whistles, so now I want to use them!! I have the manual, but it doesn't explain a lot to me. I just tells me what each icon represents.. but it doesn't go into detail about what the function really does.

So, first thing is first.. I am ashamed to admit, I don't have a clue what aperture means. I keep hearing everyone on here refer to it, but I am clueless. What is it and why do people change it? So, that is my first question! Let's get that taken care of before I move on to others!!

even though you don't have a canon the following link has a great basic tutorial on what stuff means in general ( in photography i mean, mentions nothing about the mean of life etc. )
http://www.photoworkshop.com/canon/index.html

 

[Amy]

Check out your Barnes & Noble. I used to use an SLR years ago, and then I discovered point & shoot film and digital cameras and got away from all that terminology. With my Canon S3, it has manual settings, and I needed a refresher course. I found this book at Barnes & Noble, 101 Digital Photo Tips in easy steps, and it's great! It's fully illustrated and shows you the difference between a shot at f2.8 vs. f16. Shows what noise is. All kinds of neat info, organized in an easy-to-read way, no technical stuff.

 

[bazzanoid]

Check out your Barnes & Noble. I used to use an SLR years ago, and then I discovered point & shoot film and digital cameras and got away from all that terminology. With my Canon S3, it has manual settings, and I needed a refresher course. I found this book at Barnes & Noble, 101 Digital Photo Tips in easy steps, and it's great! It's fully illustrated and shows you the difference between a shot at f2.8 vs. f16. Shows what noise is. All kinds of neat info, organized in an easy-to-read way, no technical stuff.

A word of wisdom indeed.

I use this book - it's available from Amazon or all good bookstores here in the UK.