Question from new sd700is user??

[dlynch]

Love my camera. Small. Handy. Take it everywhere (why I bought it). Love the colour rendition. Little concerned about sharpness, but enjoying image stabalisation.

Experimenting still.

Frustrated with not being able to focus where I want to whenusing it as a point and shoot. So I turned on manual, and turned off the auto focus.

The screen shows that I can take many, many more pictures, compared to settings in the auto mode (largest and finest). So I interpret that picture size is smaller (fewer pixels). What am I doing wrong?

Regards,
Dave

[BowerR64]

Manual is a mode, each mode can have its own settings. Like say you want auto to be quick for partys or pictures of friends you have it set so the images are not really good quality to share online.

Manual mode you want to spend more time taking more precise shots so you can set it to high quality, super fine detail. So you set each mode differently and it should stay there. Even a custom white balance setting can be setup so that if you always shoot at home in the same lighting the W/B will always be good.

Auto focus can be tricky in the begining once you learn how it works and what it needs it gets better. It trys to focus on lines. so what you want to do is find somthing at the same distance of your subject or perhaps a different section of your subject and focus on that part of the image. Once the green box pops up and it beeps twice you can then hit the shutter.

[dlynch]

good hint.

I want to make sure that my images are the best I can get. My other camera is a Sony 828 and it is sharper.

Regards,
Dave

[BowerR64]

It maybe but how is everything else? i had a few sony cameras and i sold them because i like the color the canons give. They seem to be more true to my eyes then the sony. What i mean is greens look green and blues look blue where the sony was yellow green and a bluish green i know i can set the white balance but it began to be a pain in the butt everytime doing that when i wanted to take some accurate colored shots. The canon seems to be good right from the box. I had 2 different sony cameras an S75 and a V1 and they both had the same color tones.

The focus is in steps pretend a 12 step flight of stairs is your focus point. If you want to shoot somthing close the camera may stop at stair 4 and say thats in focus go! and it looks good, then you aim at somthing different but this time its focus point is step 6 it greens and double beeps and you fire but its just a but fuzzy compaired to the last one. I think sometimes the best focus can be in between 5-6 to get the absolute best focus but since the auto zoom woorks with gears and motors there can be some slack if you fallow me? Sometimes you can move around and take the same shot moving your head in a little after the camera gos green or move your head back a little and it will make up for that little slack in the focus. this is just what ive noticed.

Another thing i liked over the sony is how you navigate the camera. The sony was whacky to me, they had a wheel and a direction pad and then a little slide thing you couldnt do all the functions with one hand you had to use both hands and flip back and forth to change the different things. The canon you can use your left hand for extra lighting or somthing and still navigate the camera.

[Pogi]

You are right. The SD700 does not take sharp pics compared to some cameras that are cheaper. My Canon A70 (21/2 years old) takes much sharper pics. Guess you cant have everything. Just nice to have lots of features to play around with.

[dlynch]

Thanks! Perfect description.

Auto: Large/superfine
"Manual": Large/fine

Fixed now!

You've helped a lot. And I'm feeling techically challenged....

Regards,
DAve

ps Image stabalisation is helping a lot. Camera shake sure affects sharpness too. I'm used to mashing an F3 against my face to prevent shake. Hard to do with some of the digital cameras. For me preparing to hold a camera is like preparing to shoot...stance and controlled breathing.




Manual is a mode, each mode can have its own settings. Like say you want auto to be quick for partys or pictures of friends you have it set so the images are not really good quality to share online.

Manual mode you want to spend more time taking more precise shots so you can set it to high quality, super fine detail. So you set each mode differently and it should stay there. Even a custom white balance setting can be setup so that if you always shoot at home in the same lighting the W/B will always be good.

Auto focus can be tricky in the begining once you learn how it works and what it needs it gets better. It trys to focus on lines. so what you want to do is find somthing at the same distance of your subject or perhaps a different section of your subject and focus on that part of the image. Once the green box pops up and it beeps twice you can then hit the shutter.