Canon Powershot S2?

Question

Hello All,

I purchased a canon Powershot S2 few months back and have not used it to full potential. I have recently trying to ease by stress by developing interest in photography. I recently took few pics from by patio using the setting P and TV and was able to take some decent pics of golden gate bridge but when i tried max zoom on my lawn to capture the dew the photo comes blurred.

Can someone advice me the settings which i need in my S2 if i am going to a ZOO? and if i am going some place high altitude like twin peaks to take pictures of the city.

I have read lots of text online about aperture and all but i would like to set those in my camera and try it out so that i know the difference of different settings.

Appreciate all your responses.

Answer 1

Photography is a great way to relieve stress. Particularly if you go old school (even with a high tech S2) and take your time to appreciate the lighting, properly compose a shot and tweak the camera settings.
I wish I could do that more often myself, but I tend to blast through interesting places in snapshot mode.
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Regarding the blurred 'dew-shots', there could be 3 things going on:
* camera movement - real easy at maximum zoom. A tripod or some improvised form of stabilization (against a wall or so) is highly recommended.
* low light - AF always has a hard time at dusk or when there are no contrasty lines or other indicators to work with. Try refocusing until you get a good lock in these cases.
* something else is in focus - check if the camera focussed on anything at all. AF tends to lock on to the nearest object to the camera, whether that's your intended subject or not.
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As for settings, I keep my camera in aperture priority 99% of the time. I use the aperture setting for creative control and indirectly, and in combination with the ISO setting, to control the shutter speed.
I try to keep the ISO setting at the lowest value for the best image quality. I only increase it when I need a faster shutter speed for a particular shot.
And I save files in best image quality (I can always reduce the file size later, on my computer).
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* Ideas for the zoo:
Make sure your auto-focus does it's job. As stated above, it will sometimes try to focus on the bars of cages, the backs of people's heads - anything but the animals!
If that's unavoidable, use a high aperture number - that will give you some extra wiggle room with the in-focus area. (Not as significant with compact cameras as it is with dSLR models.)
If you're in close, experiment a bit with fill-flash. Even on a bright day, using the flash can give your pictures extra pop. (Not recommended with anything that could reach out and maul you ;-)
If you're more than 15 feet away, kill the flash. It won't do anything.
* Ideas for landscapes:
High aperture numbers generally give better image quality. Most of the time, the sweet spot is the second largest aperture number available.
Stabilize the camera (eg. lean your elbows on the car).
Avoid mid day. It's a cliche, but go just after sunrise of before sunset for the best light.
Finally, you can experiment a bit with exposure compensation (EV)
The S2 looks like a really nice camera (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canons2is/page15.asp ). I hope you have fun with it!

Answer 2

I would suggest that when you go to "max zoom" make sure there is nothing else in the frame that is going to compete for focus. A deck handrail or something that catches one of the focusing spots will cause your camera to try and focus on it rather than what you want. Also, if this camera has manually adjustable focusing points you can set it to focus on only the one in the middle of the screen. Read your camera manual carefully to figure this out!