[andygrif]

Originally Posted by Barewolf

So what youre saying is manually change ISO to 400 - 800? For shots? This will reduce camera shake and blurry images?

Almost, yes! Increasing the ISO from 400 to 800 will mean that the sensor requires one less stop of light to produce a correctly exposed frame. So if you had a shutter speed of 1/30th second at ISO400 then you would use 1/60th sec at ISO800 to get the same overall exposure. However, the down side of increasing the ISO, as previously mentioned, is that the grain on the photo is greatly increased at higher ISO numbers. But it's better to have grain than camera shake in most cases!

Originally Posted by Barewolf

Ok Today I have been out with my Samsung S700. I took on board what people have been saying and I am still learning, however if it hadnt have been for andy pointing out apperture, focal length, ISO etc then I would have had it set on Auto all the time which would have been useless today.

Today was sunny, not the brightest day weve had but it was bright outside.

I took some pictures WITH and WITHOUT auto function. I was suprised at the difference it made.

I set the Manual mode to 1/60th Shutter Speed. Most were taken 1/90th Though. The decent one below is 1/90th. The gloomy dark one is AUTO. And the 3rd one Is one i took which is how i want it all the time really, if possible to make it better then wicked. This was Manual 1/90th.

Interesting eh? Before long you'll be shooting in manual mode all the time becuase you'll know the results you'll get will be better once you've mastered it!!

Out of the three I prefer the first one, which was on auto I presume, as the shutter speed is 1/350th sec and it gives the best overal exposure of what is a slightly complex variety of requirements for a camera...by that I mean that you have a blue sky that needs to come out, the dark green trees and the bright yellow foreground. So the camera has done a good job at second guessing what exposure settings to use in this case.

In your second shot, I'd say that was overexposed by a couple of stops by looking at it. When I'm looking at the EXIF data I can see that your ISO is set to about the same as the auto shot, so is the aperture (f/ stop) but the camera originally thought you needed a shutter speed of 1/350th and on the second shot you've manually selected 1/90th second. So you can start to see what's happening right? 1/350th second is a much shorter exposure than 1/90th second, so in your manual setting you're allowing more light into the camera (becuase the shutter is open for 1/260th second longer) which is why the overall look is much lighter. For a perfect shot I'd hit somewhere between the two values for a lighter, but better exposed shot...somewhere more like 1/250th perhaps.

Same goes for the third shot, which had the same ISO and aperture and the shutter speed again was 1/90th. A little overexposed...but all good learning material!

Originally Posted by Barewolf

So definately helps knowing about these focal lengths and Shutter speeds. Focal length still confusing me

Focal length is just the zoom. If your camera has optical zoom, then it is a proper zoom lens. Any figures for digital zoom should be forgotten, and you should ideally not use digital zoom, as this is just zooming into the shot using software, which cuases bad pixellation and can be done on your computer (better) if you insist on it anyway.

Originally Posted by Barewolf

The third picture seemed to come out great, cant remember if i used Macro mode in Manual for this shot or not. Or if i should have done that.

No. Macro is just another word for close-up photography. What you were doing was landscape photography, where you want a good depth of field (that's for lesson two!) so you need a smaller aperture (bigger f/ number) to make sure everything in the shot is in focus. Using a wide aperture (small f/ number) will mean that the one thing you focus on will be in focus and most other stuff will be blurred. Sometimes you want this, for example to draw attention to the thing you're focussed on, and sometimes you want everything in focus, such as landscapes.

Originally Posted by Barewolf

I found though even in Manual mode "Some" pictures came out a little dark while others were nice and bright. Does this have something to do with where the sun is shining? Ie if its behind me do i use more shutter speed?, If its in front of me I use less? Or is that all wrong lol. Sorry if it is.

You're on the right train of thought. Every shot is going to have different values needed. Some cameras will tell you, when in manual mode, when you've got the combination of settings that it thinks will produce a good exposure. So if your shot looks too bright, it's overexposed. Reduce the speed of the shutter or decrease the size of aperture (use a larger numbered f/ stop) to reduce the amount of light.

Hope this helps

Originally Posted by Stuart C

Actually, I based that statement on a Canon EOS D350. We have a Hewlett Packard A1 inkjet at work, and when testing it, we went out and took pictures in various modes. Two (both of a statue on some grass) were taken at the highest res for the camera. One as a RAW image, and one with JPEG compression. When printed out (at A2 size), there were noticable artifacts on the grass with JPEG compression.

Having said that, I didn't take the photo, so only have the other technician's word that he was using a high quality JPEG setting. Sadly, he kept the file as well.

As mentioned, when you're printing images that are larger than the native output of the camera then it's good practice to use a decent interpolation algorhythm. A little secret trick in Photoshop is to only ever resmaple by 10% each time, never just resample to the size you want to print. I've blown A2 sized prints from a 10D (which was a long time before the 350d) using this method with no real artifacts to worry about.