Just bought myself this camera today, my first genuine owned camera. I'm just messing about with it so I'll slap some pictures up soon and hopefully get you photo moguls to tell me what I'm doing wrong. I have no idea what I'm doing in manual mode!
I think the camera is pretty decent but the pop up flash is just dumb!
pink or blue?
| Photographer |
I bought the blue one. They had black too. Disappointed with battery life so far. Managed a few short HD videos and about 120 pictures before the battery ran dry. Pictures will go up once I find somewhere to host the full size pictures.
The paid version of flickr will let you upload and view in full res. Not sure whether its free counterpart will let you do the same.
OK, so here are a few snaps from the camera.
Click
ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/400 sec
Aperture: 5.0
Click
ISO: 400
Exposure: 1/2000 sec
Aperture: 3.1
Click
[Auto-mode]
ISO: 320
Exposure: 1/1000 sec
Aperture: 4.0
Click
ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/2000 sec
Aperture: 3.1
bit of an action/snap shot this one hence the random hands and arms in the photo.
ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/1600 sec
Aperture: 3.1
and a couple of long exposure shots.
Click
ISO: 100
Exposure: 1.3 sec
Aperture: 3.1
Click
ISO: 100
Exposure: 6.0 sec
Aperture: 8.0
Last one...Dotombori River at night.
Click
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/3 sec
Aperture: 5.6
So...that's me messing with the camera...thoughts? Advice?
Yes, I think this one would of benefited greatly from a long exposureOriginally Posted by sleepyhead
The problem with that shot was that when I cranked up the time, the light sources were too bright? I couldn't seem to fix it fiddling with the ISO or F numbers. Infact, going lower on the ISO meant I was getting a yellow warning box...whatever that means, hence why it was on 200.Yes, I think this one would of benefited greatly from a long exposure
I don't have any experience in manual mode so...any advice to helping fix these situations would greatly be appreciated.
Also, on the other photos are they too dark, too bright, out of focus? Should I have gone for a different setting?
In fact, what order should I go through the settings? ISO -> F-Stop -> Shutter?
It's much easier to comment when you embed images in posts directly
While the image looks a bit lifeless, the camera has captured a lot of information, giving you the room to improve the image in an editor on the computer. This is the right way around, if you have time to edit photos later. If not, you might want to increase contrast and colour saturation in camera, or look for a 'cloudy/shady' white balance setting.
The settings don't make sense here. You have a wide open aperture (lets more light in), increased gain on the sensor (higher ISO value) and the camera is forced to use a high shutter speed to reduce the exposure. However, the sky is still badly blown.
If I was taking this shot again I would first of all select the lowest normal ISO I could - probably 100 on this camera - that's always going to be my default starting position to get highest quality as increasing the gain affects the image quality. For a snap such as this one, you have elements of the scene both close to you and far away, so I would not have the aperture wide open - though it doesn't need closing much on small sensor cameras. If you have a landscape mode then use it for this kind of shot. Shutter speed I would leave at whatever the camera thought was right - there's no action element that requires a particular speed.
This one isn't too bad - the camera has picked a very high shutter speed again though - I would have preferred a slower shutter and consequently being able to drop the ISO.
Correct settings for the shot if you wanted to freeze the action. You can add more dynamism to car shots by slowing the shutter down to 1/100 which will allow the wheels to blur, though you might have to pan to keep the rest sharp. Another lowish contrast picture suitable for editing afterwards, or again change to cloudy white balance in camera to warm it up a little.
Same as above really - you could crop in an editor to remove hands.bit of an action/snap shot this one hence the random hands and arms in the photo.
ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/1600 sec
Aperture: 3.1
Stop down the aperture a bit more (increase number) and you can get longer exposure and probably reduce flare. Good otherwise.
Which is what you did with this oneCould do with an even steady mount maybe.
As mentioned before, ISO needs to come down to allow a longer exposure.
With a compact camera my order of messing around goes:
1) Set ISO to the lowest normal level to decrease sensor gain.
2) Set aperture to the sharpest setting for the lens in the camera - that's usually one or two stops away from most open (lowest number) - f/4 to f/5 for your camera probably.
3) Let the camera decide shutter speed to correctly expose the scene.
Then I adjust if needed based on the shot - if I need a different shutter speed then change to shutter priority and allow the camera to set the aperture. If in daytime the shot is asking for a speed too slow then boost ISO by the minimum amount to bring shutter speed back into sensible range.
The auto white balance on my compact was almost faultless, but yours seems to be a little cool in shady conditions, so another step might be to set the white balance to cloudy yourself in those situations (don't forget to set it back afterwards).
Don't be afraid to use the inbuilt scene modes either, then look at the shot the camera took and ask why it changed those settings.
sleepyhead (17-05-2011)
Thanks for the comprehensive breakdown
To be honest, I've no idea what I was doing in manual mode, so I'm glad you told me one of the settings made no sense to you. I find that when I try and study photography terms and photography, I switch off but I like messing about.
The 6 second exposure picture, the camera was resting on a sign. I thought that was stable enough and I set a timer so I hit go and just waited for it to take the snap. Guess I can try again another time.
I remember now, most of the photos were purposefully underexposed so it could be fixed later on. I was told it's easier to fix under-exposure than over-exposure.
The first picture was taken because some idiot walked THROUGH the gravel section but anyhow, thanks for the tip on that one.
My problem that day at the mountain side was the constant change from super sunny to cloudy to being in the shade but taking a photo where it's in the sun light.
There is a lot of tripe photos but I'm trying to understand what to do.
I'm not too sure about Picasa and embedding photos...
how is this?
Curious as this should be a 4000x3000 size picture. I'll fettle with the tags later...
Also, thanks for the tips with shutter speed and getting the wheels blurry to add some action but I couldn't pan as I the camera was resting on the concrete wall.
Guess I'll try again later and I'll stick some more pictures up for review.
OK, so I edited my post and added two random pictures...which kind do you guys prefer? Non-clickable medium sized picture or a clickable thumbnail? I could make the medium sized picture clickable too?
Last edited by sleepyhead; 18-05-2011 at 04:42 AM.
I prefer the medium sized photo - it's large enough for me to appreciate the scene without having to click through (though I would if I was going to make a technical comment about focus/sharpness). Thumbnails are okay to pre-filter what I'm going to look at, but I can't enjoy the photo without having to click through - so they'd only really make me ignore certain photos
If you were showing several photos then I'd use medium sized embeds, and provide a link to the album at the bottom/top of the post, so we can go there direct if we need to.
OK Kalniel...
This picture looks so...lifeless...I wanted a nice picture of Sakura but it ended up look so dull...
Is this to do with auto white balance again? Did I just take a terrible shot?
Oh and here is a shot from the Hilton viewing the ANA Sky Plaza Building (I think that is it's name).
Comments?
Last edited by sleepyhead; 19-05-2011 at 04:46 AM.
Not your or your camera's fault, it's just hard to take a shot like that and have it look nice - the light just kind of washes things out and the colours are always pale for that blossom. I didn't manage any better with my DSLR in our garden:OK Kalniel...
This picture looks so...lifeless...I wanted a nice picture of Sakura but it ended up look so dull...
Is this to do with auto white balance again? Did I just take a terrible shot?
I just resigned myself to waiting for blue skies and standing further back on that one
Really nice photo IMHO, especially love the reflections. Well done. If (and only if!) you were being really picky there's just the slightest hint of perspective distortion which makes the buildings appear to lean in a touch - this is entirely normal when pointing your camera upwards slightly and is only correctable optically with horrendously expensive and fiddle tilt-shift lenses. Digitally it's much easier to correct, however I wouldn't bother worrying about it (a very small clockwise rotation might make it less noticeable, because the eye is drawn to the left hand edge of the plaza building).Oh and here is a shot from the Hilton viewing the ANA Sky Plaza Building (I think that is it's name).
Comments?
But that's being unbelievably nit-picky and is only there because there's always something to improve further!
Nice pics
OK Kalniel...
This picture looks so...lifeless...I wanted a nice picture of Sakura but it ended up look so dull...
Is this to do with auto white balance again? Did I just take a terrible shot?
Oh and here is a shot from the Hilton viewing the ANA Sky Plaza Building (I think that is it's name).
Comments?
I've got the sx220, which is much the same camera. I haven't messed with the manual settings, other than putting it in Av mode, but the nightscene pre-set works pretty well. As for battery life, switch off GPS! Mine lasts fine, as it doesn't have this function. And I know where I was when I took the photo.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote
![](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_MR8Ffuy46vM/TdB43aOj2hI/AAAAAAAAAHw/PcaspE960Os/s144/IMG_0050.JPG height="108" width="144")
