how to get better pics??

ok...so im playing around with my new camera, trying to figure ot how to get better pictures. I need some pros to tell me what looks off in these, and what wold make them better. Some of them seem very dark...but when in auto, some things are a blur. Like the shuter speed is to low...im at a loss. thanks

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ryanryan5102/album?.dir=/c8f4

i had to resize the ones posted...but the original ones are in the album's link

What kind of camera are You using ?

cannon S2IS

there's only so much you can do w/ a point and shoot. does it have manual settings?

I agree with Joe but start by shooting in better light. It looks like You shot these in the shade.

I suggest that you read up on general photography and your camera and know all it's functions. Then go out and use your camera a lot !
Soon you will be familiar with your camera and all it's settings and there will be a big improvement in photo quality and consistency of your shots.

Here's a good photography forum. http://dpreview.com/

Everything is in lighting....
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/timing.htm

Well if you can get the doggie to stand still while you lite the scene that's all well and good but realistically I think these shots were just too dark for you cam's auto settings. Does that cam display a histogram after each shot? If it does learn to use it. It will tell you if your shot is exposed properly. And learn your manual settings if you can't get there in auto.

Here is the histogram for the original shot:

Upload original.tiff (72.3 k)

You can tell it's under exposed by the black levels being piled up on the left side.

Look at the histogram after I adjusted the levels:

Upload leveled.tiff (54.6 k)

I pulled the whites slider down and slid the mids over to enhance contrast and lighten up the image. I actually like walt's version a bit better, I over did it to show you the effect. If you shoot in RAW it's even easier to fix.

But if you watch the histogram in camera you can get the shots exposed properly and not need any post processing.

Sorry forgot WW won't do tiffs

Here is the original:



Here is the histogram of the image after I adjusted it.

It definitely harder to get a quality photo from a point and shoot because you just don't get the depth of field and picture quality you can get from a DSLR. But it is possible and perhaps the most important component to a good photo is lighting. The reasoning behind having a camera with manual controls is that you can make adjustments to compensate for the lighting.

And sometimes you just get lucky with an automatic setting.

it's got the manual settings...i'm just not sure where to set them for different lighting situations.


and yes, it does show the graph once you take the picture

There is no easy way to deal with all the of different images you'll be recording without learning the process.

There's a great book out called "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson. I learned a lot from reading it. Get the new version updated for digital.

I see you used the builtin flash on those shots (that explains why they are underexposed - normally the auto metering would tend to overexpose - trying to bring the scene to 18% grey overall)

To be honest given the use of the flash those are not bad at all as they look very natural. I would rather get those results if using a flash (and then just pull the exposure up in RAW or with levels) vs having an overexposed dog and dark background which is what you'd get with to much FEC.