A95-Can someone help a frustrated beginner?

[Vette1]

I just can't get this camera down. I thought it would be a good POINT AND SHOOT camera where I could take out of the box and use but I can't get good pictures consistantly. When I do get a good shot it is good, but I got it to take pictures of our 5 month old and I am missing too many good moments. Hopefully someone could help me with a few questions. :o

First, what is up with the blinding flash? If I use a flash inside it looks like I have a floodlight on the person I am shooting. All of the pictures are washed out. If I turn it off, for some reason the picture is blurry. I try to use auto portrait.

I was just looking for an easy camera that took really crisp vivid pictures that I could crop if I wanted to. The A95 sounded like the perfect camera but I wanted to be able to just pick it up and get a good shot of the baby and I can't seem to. I had a 2 megapixel Kodak that I got way better pictures from.

Any suggestions? I am close to just taking a loss on it and going out and getting something easier to use.

Oh, and I get a ton of red eye even when it is turned off. :confused:

[MrSleep]

Hi Vette. :)

First of all, in my opinion I wouldnt use a flash on a baby!

That being said you can turn down the intensity of the flash from menu or turn it off altogether and up the iso speed.

Dont zoom! Zooming in takes away light. Instead move closer and try to use as less shutter speed as you can get away with.

You might need to learn how to use your cam in semi or full manual mode, which brings me to a reply from another thread that seems relevant to your subject...

Manual is Easy.
The other day when I was taking snaps of my nephew on a merri go round, I decided to switch to auto, and by doing so, all of the shots were out of focus.

After switching to manual, everthing was sharp and focused.

I dont mean to complicate matters however you also got to take in to account, for a longer shutter lag time when using in auto which most P&S style cams suffer from.., That is, it takes longer to snap, cause its gotto adjust all those settings for you, shutter, f-stop, iso, flash etc.

When using in manual, you dont miss out on them candid moments, and it doesnt take that long to make adjustments of these settings either, for eg when changing the shutter, (most frequently tuned) the camera feels unburdened about going through every setting everytime you want to take a simple picture.

Learning about how your camera works is like upgrading to a more expensive camera for free.

You will find yourself zooming through these featuers in no time, and then..
You will know what setting to tune for whatever subject and make prior adjustments just like a real photographer.

Hope this helps,

[Vette1]

Thanks for the advice! I have been using the auto mode most of the time so I will try in a couple other modes before I throw it against the wall from frustration. :D

I guess it makes sense about the auto having to set everything, and I did notice it pauses before taking the picture.