Taking pictures with Canon s500 point and shoot?

[xunkn0vvnx]

I have a canon s500 point and shoot and am getting crappy results when taking pictures... here are some examples. Can anyone recommend me settings and tips on how to take better pictures of corals? Lighting is 50/50 PC's.

 

[frekcles]

Tripod for stability, night setting if the camera has one, pre-focusing, etc.....

good-luck!

 

[mikedege]

Are you using the "digital macro" function? here is an example of my canon sd450 with the macro.

 

[glaudds]

Cool pictures, mikedge.

Here's a good resource.....
http://www.ximinasphotography.com/lessons/index.html

 

[Jamie1210]

hey, mikedege, how do you get your pictures to be so good? I have the canon sd400, and when I use the macro function, the pics would turn out blurry. the only thing i do is turn off the flash ... any other pointers?

thanks,
Jamie

 

[guppyy]

try using a tripod...

 

[mikedege]

hey, mikedege, how do you get your pictures to be so good? I have the canon sd400, and when I use the macro function, the pics would turn out blurry. the only thing i do is turn off the flash ... any other pointers?

All I do is turn on the macro, and turn off the flash. Then the coral I want to take a picture of, i make sure it is 1-4 inches from the front glass. And I set the camera lense flush up against the glass and "click". I dont really mess with anything else, and thats what I get. I do notice If you want to take a pic of a coral further away, it gets blurry. heres an example of one further away from the glass.

good luck, Mike

 

[echoplex]

I put the camera right up against the glass, and press the button halfway down until the item i want to photograph appears in the green "focus area" boxes. It takes 5-10 attempts to get the camera to focus on what I want.

Then the real trick is to hold perfectly still, (hence touching the camera to the glass) and press the button the rest of the way down, and wait until the photo shows up on the screen before moving.

Macro mode works in both point-and-shoot and manual, and the icon/button looks like a Flower. You sure it's turned on?

If you want to get better pictures than point-and-shoot macro, switch to manual mode, enable macro, and play with the exposure and color settings.

Canon S400 (older and crappier than your camera):

 

[Jamie1210]

hey, I got it! it's weird ... but with my camera, under "function set", there's another icon that says digital macro ... for some reason, when I used that one to take pics, I'd get blurry images. but if i use the rose icon by touching one of the "left arrow" keys, it works, and takes great images! and, gosh, to think all this time of not knowing how to take coral pics .... thanks guys!

~jamie~