S3 IS help

KyleC · 02-21-2007, 09:55 AM

I purchased an S3 right after christmas. I previously had a Canon A80 which took great pictures but I wanted a better zoom.

I am having two issues with the S3. One is grain in my pictures, and the other is blurriness despite having IS on.

I am trying to take pictures of a high school play. Sometimes I get great pictures and others I get are blurry despite little to no movement on stage. Can anyone give me some pointers?

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Scott Merryfield · 02-21-2007, 04:35 PM

Quote:

I am trying to take pictures of a high school play. Sometimes I get great pictures and others I get are blurry despite little to no movement on stage. Can anyone give me some pointers?

Are you using an auto mode on the camera, or one of the manual modes (i.e. manual, aperture priority, shutter priority)? If it's in auto, you are probably getting a slower shutter speed than necessary due to poor lighting indoors. Even with IS, you will still need a reasonable shutter speed to eliminate camera shake.

I am not that familiar with the S3, but it probably does not give you any more than a 3-stop shutter speed advantage with IS engaged. If you are zoomed in at the S3's maximum focal length (432mm equivalent), using the reciprocal of focal length rule, without IS you would normally need at least 1/500 second shutter speed to eliminate camera shake blur (maybe more if you are unsteady). So, with the 3-stop advantage of IS, you would still need 1/60 second shutter speed to eliminate camera shake.

Try using either AV (aperture priority), TV (shutter priority) or manual mode. Make sure your shutter speed is at least 1/60 if you are zoomed in all the way. You will probably need to bump the ISO up substantially indoors. If the lighting is really poor, it may be impossible to get a wide enough aperture even with the ISO set at maximum. In this case, your only other options are using flash or going to a wider angle setting to reduce focal length, which would allow you to use a slower shutter speed.

Man-Fai Wong · 02-21-2007, 06:25 PM

What Scott said.

Also, if you shoot at the wider end of the S3's lens, the max aperture will be larger allowing more light to be captured and thus yielding higher shutter speeds (all else being equal). I suspect there's at least a 1.3-stop difference in max aperture between full wide and full tele on the S3 (like many other such digicams).

Also, aside from the issue of camera shake, there's also the matter of motion blur from the potentially moving subjects themselves since you're shooting a school play. I suspect if you're shooting at anything less than 1/60 sec shutter speed, you will have lots of shots w/ some amounts of motion blur apart from any potential camera shake. 1/60 sec is ok when the subjects are relatively still. If they're moving about, you'll need much faster shutter speeds to "freeze/stop the action".

_Man_

Scott Merryfield · 02-22-2007, 08:05 AM

To expand on Man's comments regarding motion blur, if your entire picture is out of focus, the problem is most likely due to camera shake, while if only the items in motion within the frame (i.e. people) are blury, then the problem is motion blur. In either case, you need as faster shutter speed. For motion blur, though, you may need much faster shutter speeds than are needed to correct camera shake (especially with an image stabilized lens, which helps with the latter, but does nothing for motion blur). For relatively still people, you still need at least 1/60sec, and if they are moving around on stage, you'll need faster (probably 1/250sec to be safe).

The type of photos you are attempting (indoor telephoto with motion) are really taxing the limits of what can be accomplished with a point & shoot camera.

PerryD · 02-22-2007, 09:41 AM

I purchased a nice lightweight tripod for my S2 and it greatly improved my indoor shots.

KyleC · 02-22-2007, 08:09 PM

I used to always use the auto mode but at the suggestion of someone I started to use Av mode. My current settings are:

aperature -1/3
ISO 400

I have to admit I'm not used to any camera except for point and shoot. Where do I set shutter speed, and do I always have to adjust it? Also, I'm going to a concert on Saturday night so the settings will probably need to be the same. I want to make sure I don't get blurry photos. So any suggestions are helpful. Thanks.

Man-Fai Wong · 02-23-2007, 04:14 AM

Kyle,

Your settings for Av mode seems to be missing something, ie. the actual aperture setting. It looks like you meant exposure compensation -1/3EV, not aperture -1/3, if I deciphered it correctly.

Aperture setting would be something like f/2.8 or f/4 or something along those lines (and possibly w/out the "f/" part or possibly replaced w/ "F" like F2.8). Most of these compact digicams have aperture settings between f/2.8 and f/8 at the wideangle end and maybe ~f/5 to f/8 at the telephoto end -- the ones w/ better lenses might go as large (or bright) as f/2 at wideangle and f/2.8 at telephoto.

Anyway, I suggest you take some time to go through a basic photography tutorial/guide to learn some fundamentals, if you really want to get the most out of your camera -- and wanting consistently good results in difficult situations like indoors w/out flash will really need that. There is no quick-and-dirty answer for your request for good settings to use across a variety of difficult indoor situations. You'll be pushing the very limits of the camera's capabilities and then some, so you'll often need to make good decisions/compromises about how, what and when to shoot for good results -- and may also need to use the brute force method of shooting a lot just to get a few decent shots. And unless you learn the basics well, you won't be able to make consistently good decisions/compromises for consistently good results.

For the concert this Saturday, what kind of concert is it? What's the venue (and the expected lighting)? What kind of photos do you expect to shoot? How far will you be for the shots? And the list goes on... More details would help determine how to approach the shots and what kind of settings to go for. Concerts can vary widely in lighting whether in color or in brightness or between spot lighting (and its direction) and ambient lighting, etc. You might even encounter stuff like fog/mist produced by dry ice or the like that can affect your shots at concerts. Your distance will matter of course as zooming (as you know by now) can impact your choice of settings for best results, and also, it affects your camera's POV (or perspective) and thus choice of framing/composition and whatever potential perspective distortions, especially if up close.

Having said all that. In general, I would recommend that you zoom toward telephoto as little as possible for your indoor shots since the lens is dimmer as you zoom towards the tele end -- it is brightest (w/ largest available aperture) at the wide end. You'll need the larger/brighter aperture for faster shutter speeds. Also, if you keep the lens closer to the wide end, you won't need as fast shutter speeds to prevent camera shake blur (though this doesn't prevent motion blur from moving subjects). If you're comfortable w/ using Av mode, you probably want to just keep the aperture setting at its largest at all times for your handheld indoor shots -- and again, that "largest" aperture setting will vary depending on the current focal length (ie. zoom setting) of your lens. In Av mode, you set the aperture and exposure compensation (and ISO), and the camera will choose the shutter speed accordingly based on what it thinks/guesses as best for an even exposure. If you find that the shutter speed is not fast enough even at the largest aperture, you will probably need to bump up the ISO setting until it's fast enough. For still people subjects, 1/60sec might be fast enough (assuming you have IS turned on). For moving subjects, you might easily need 1/250sec or faster. And FYI, ISO and shutter speed are directly proportional, eg. 2x ISO yields 2x shutter speed w/ all else being equal.

_Man_

Scott Merryfield · 02-23-2007, 08:23 AM

Quote:

Anyway, I suggest you take some time to go through a basic photography tutorial/guide to learn some fundamentals, if you really want to get the most out of your camera -- and wanting consistently good results in difficult situations like indoors w/out flash will really need that.

I'll second Man's above recommendation. Under the difficult lighting conditions you are shooting in, you really need to understand how exposure works in order to adapt your camera settings to the conditions. I would suggest "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson as a good source. Here is a link at Amazon for the book. Also, I believe that Canon has some free tutorials on their website.

KyleC · 02-23-2007, 09:12 AM

Thanks. I appreciate all the information. The concert I'm going to is Sara Evans, so I don't think there'll be any special effects. I'm also going to be in the second row so I shouldn't have to zoom much if at all. I stepped up to the S3 mainly for it's IS and zoom capabilities but perhaps I got in a little over my head. Unfortunately the concert is tomorrow night so I'll have to be a quick study I guess. Thanks again.

Jeremy Stockwell · 02-23-2007, 10:09 AM

Also, depending on the lighting, consider center-weighted or spot metering. Sometimes with bright spotlights on the artist and dark backgrounds (as is often the ideal for concerts), the camera will tend to overexpose. It 'sees' lots of darkness and only a bit of brightness and tries to compensate and you get blown out skin tones. Meter on her face (shutter halfway down), recompose (if necessary) and shoot.

During the concert, if you are consistently getting blurry photos, consider bumping up the ISO a bit so that your shutter speeds can be lower. Based on the reviews I've seen for the S3, I wouldn't go higher than ISO400.

Be sure to check back in here after the concert and show us some of your best shots!

KyleC · 02-23-2007, 11:21 AM

Here's two pics I took back in July with my old A80:

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j8...Concert_20.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j8...Concert_25.jpg

KyleC · 02-25-2007, 01:29 PM

Here's a few I took last night with the S3. Luckily someone I met last night had an S2 so he showed me some settings.