[Takaharu]

Can anyone recommend a good compact camera tutorial?

I want to get to know some of the basic stuff like what exactly ISO is and under what circumstances you'd need to change it, understanding shutter timings, when it's appropriate to change how many megapixels you're using, stuff like that.
I've got no interest in going pro and I generally just use my camera for point-and-click but I think it would be good to learn how to take some pictures even better.

I could probably look this up through Google but I wouldn't be able to tell how accurate the tutorial is.

[Matth]

A Beginner's Guide to Simple Photography Concepts: ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed - Tutorials - just found this, reasonable on the basics.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tut...a-exposure.htm Ah, I think this one is better

The key point, is that a particular "correct" exposure can be met by several different sets of conditions.
Now if you're struggling with shortage of light (the most common problem), you have a choice of:
Wider aperture - downside = lower depth of field
Slower shutter speed - downside = more problem from motion and shake
Increasing ISO - downside = increased digital noise / film grain.

On rule of thumb, is that for acceptable handheld shots, the shutter speed should be no slower than the reciprocal of the focal length (in 35mm equivalent), so a lens of 50mm is ok for handheld shots at 1/60s, while the good old 135mm lens needed 1/125s as the longer lens magnifies any movement - of course, if you are really steady and braced, you may do better.

Change megapixels? - there's really no reason to shoot at less than maximum, unless saving card space, as you can always edit down. If you are intending to shoot & upload without any processing, then you may want to shoot at the final resolution

[niceguyrichy]

^ that's solid advice

i would just add, do yourself a favour and buy a Gorillapod
fantastic wee things for compact camera pic taking

[Takaharu]

Thanks, Matth, it's a good help.

I think I'm getting to know the limitations of my camera. Taking a photo of my keyboard, for example, using the macro mode I can take a reasonable photo at a distance of around 20cm. Taking a clear picture of a coin at 5-10cm is seemingly impossible. No matter which setting I tried adjusting it just wouldn't clear to an acceptable level.
I might borrow my fiancée's camera to see if I can practise what I've learned with that.

For the sort of photos that I take a compact is sufficient; a few point-and-clicks every now and then (or a few more depending on the event I'm going to).

[Matth]

Things to check, minimum macro distance - and on most digitals, setting macro mode simply favours close autofocus, it doesn't change anything in the camera or lens.

On my camera (C902 phone), in macro mode, if it's too close, the focus marker doesn't lock - and very few compacts with macro can do extreme closeup, so you have to accept an image that needs cropping down afterwards, or maybe use zoom, though optical zoom might lengthen the minimum distance, and digital zoom just crops & magnifies anyway.

Actually, I've seen two style of digital zoom:
Crop zoom, where a 2x zoom on a 10MP camera deliver a 2.5MP image, the same as if you cropped the full image later.
Interpolate zoom, where it takes the reduced image, and interpolates the inbetween pixels to bring it back to full resolution.

In both cases the fact remains that digital zoom does not actually gain any detail

[Takaharu]

I've seen on a few occasions details of cameras that have multiple lenses in a set but they don't make a great deal of sense to me. This is something that's peaked my intrigue, rather than something I'd consider buying.

For example, one camera that I spotted has a 14mm lens packaged with a 14-45mm lens. If a lens is set to 14mm, wouldn't it be the same as a dedicated 14mm lens, apart from the physical length?

[Matth]

A single focal length lens, referred to as a prime lens, is usually superior to a zoom - often allowing a larger aperture and better precision.

Going back to 35mm (never owned a digital SLR) my 35mm kit included a 50mm prime (the kit lens, and also the one usually mounted on the camera), a 135mm "telephoto", though the name is not strictly accurate as the lens is not technically of telephoto construction), and later a 70-210mm zoom, with a lot poorer aperture than the 135mm. Also had (purists would cry in horror) a 2x teleconverter, doubles the focal length of any lens, but with massive penalty in aperture and accuracy.

[dj_stick]

current teleconverters have much less of an IQ hit than the traditional ones, but still affect the aperture (1 or 2 stops depending on if it's a 1.4x or 2x TC)

good value if you've got something like a 70-200 and want a little extra range without splurging on a new lens

my current lens kit, in order of purchase, currently consists of

Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 - general purpose zoom, floating aperture (changes based on focal length)
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II - aka the "nifty-fifty" or "plastic fantastic" - the standard focal length for 35mm days, kind of fallen out of favour with the current digital cameras with a crop factor of 1.5-1.6 times (due to the smaller sensor) - regardless still a great value lens for learning about depth of field
Canon EF 28mm f/2.8 - my favourite lens atm, it's focal length on my 1.6x body compares closely enough to the perspective of a 50mm lens on a 35mm film camera
Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 - fast zoom, high quality glass, worth more than the other three lenses combined... tempted to get a Teleconverter for it, which would drop it down to f/4 (1.4x convertor) or f/5.6 (2x TC) - still fast enough for most purposes I'd use it for

now the term "fast" refers to how wide the aperture is, rather than using the word "wide" as that could be confused with the angle of the lens (aka wide angle). A lens with a wider aperture allows for a quicker shutter speed to get the same exposure than a lens with a smaller aperture, hence the term "fast" - which should help clear up any confusion you might come across

you might notice i'm lacking anything wider than 28mm... something I've noticed too... thinking of maybe the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8, or maybe the Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5...

The quality of the lens will have a great impact on the quality of the photos, but without understanding how to use a camera to the best of it's abilities, there's no point in spending big on an amazing camera/lens combination when you're just beginning

As to what the terms actually mean:

Aperture - consider it the camera's iris, controls how much light is let into the camera, and the "depth of field" - how much of the scene in front of and behind the subject is in focus

Shutter speed - controls how long light is let into the camera for, quicker shutter speeds to freeze motion, longer to allow for "motion blur" or to show things like flowing water

ISO - essentially how sensitive the camera is to light, like turning the brightness on your computer up or down. Note that higher ISO sensitivities will also amplify the amount of digital noise/grain in your image.

It's one thing to understand the relationship between Shutter speed/Aperture/ISO, and another thing to use it, the art of taking a great photo is finding the balance or compromise between those three variables, along with a nice lens

To start with put the camera into a fixed ISO - something like 400 is a good one to start with, and shoot in Av (Aperture Value/Aperture Priority - camera will set the shutter speed automatically) for a while to learn how the aperture affect depth of field, and then try Sv (Time value/shutter priority) to learn how the shutter speed affects your impression of "motion"

[ada1984]

tnks

[Cow_160483]

Wow that's a lot more info than i bargained for when I opened the thread but very concise and interesting stuff..

[Matth]

Quite interesting to read about various camera styles, for instance:
Why SINGLE lens reflex - because there was a twin lens reflex, which had a second lens delivering a viewfinder image via a reflex mirror (the reflex biut is the angled mirror, nothing to do with it needing to move, as in SLR).

DSLR is the top end digital, with interchangeable lenses and the reflex optical viewfinder.
There are several styles inbetween those and the compact cameras:
ZLR - Zoom lens reflex - has an integral zoom lens with a reflex optical viewer... not many of this type.
Mirrorless interchangeable lens, particularly the Micro four thirds format, uses a lens and body system, but with LCD viewfinder.
Bridge camera - control features closer to those of a DSLR, but with an integral zoom lens (often a superzoom) and an LCD viewfinder.
And then, you hit the top end of the compacts.

[dj_stick]

Single lens systems avoid the "parallax" error - where what you see through the viewfinder isn't exactly what you capture- same problem exists with rangefinders (like the Fuji X100 and disposable film cameras)

I've never liked the term "bridge" - as they don't really bridge anything, they're essentially just compact camera sensors in a slightly larger body to accommodate a larger zoom

[Matth]

Live preview on a digital is also parallax free, though can be hard to view in some conditions, as well as eating battery. One other thing, an SLR sized camera, held and viewing through the eyepiece, seems a far steadier grip than on many compacts, holding the camera out to look at the viewscreen.

And yes, the "Bridge", or "Prosumer" is a very wooly and vague category, I'd say that to qualify requires decent optical performance, as well as advanced controls, manual exposure setting options etc.