Hola (56k beware)

GARRETTgalbreath · Feb 8, 2005

Hello everyone out there in interweb land,

My name is Garrett, I'm 18, a gemini and I enjoy long walks on the beach. I've fallen in love with photography (mainly due to www.deviantart.com) and I've decided to make my own photos. So I found these forums, read some basic things to get me started, and started playing around with my dad's digital camera. It is a Sony Cyber-shot 5 megapixel and that's about all I know about it. I took some photos for my dad's work recently and had NO experience with a camera prior to that, and it sparked some interest. A few weeks later, here I am. Here's something I just captured about 20 minutes ago, after reading some of the stickies about what all those settings on my camera mean. This is the one I think turned out best.

I would've changed the setting a little if I knew I would end up liking it, but all I was trying to familiarize myself with was what changing ISO, shutter speed, contrast, and other things would produce.

I have a few questions, and if I have posted enough info on my camera I'd be glad to, if you tell me what info you need. My pics all seem to come out a little grainy, and I'm confused on the "stops" of ISO relative exposure time when causing effects on the pictures. Does ISO100 mean more exposure time is needed than ISO800? To reduce grain, what should I do; from my understanding ISO800 produces less grain than ISO100, but I may have those backwards. If I want to capture a fast moving car at night with a shutter speed of 3-5 seconds, should I set ISO lower or higher, and would using the flash matter, since after the initial flash there will still be several seconds of darkness? (I don't get much traffic around here so I can't readily test myself).

What else should a complete newb like myself need, like rules of thumb basically. Should I continue messing with all the different settings and test things out myself, read and ask questions, or just worry about finding and setting up cool shots? Anything else would be appreciated, and I think I'm going to get back to reading for now. Thanks everyone, and I see myself spending/wasting numerous hours of my life here.

FlashSpeedo · Feb 8, 2005

probably too many Q's to answer in one message, but here's a stab at it.
Lower ISO numbers require more light to get the same exposure. So you would generally use higher ISO settings for lower light situations. When shooting outdoors at night I would use 800 or 1600. The higher ISO settings allow you to shorten your shutter speeds a bit. The tradeoff is that higher ISOs make your pictures grainy. So I always try to use the lowest ISO I can, and only crank the ISO up if needed for indoor w/ no flash or outdoor at night.

for capturing a moving car at night, it depends on what effect you want. if you want a red streak of tail lights then use a few seconds long shutter speed and no flash. if you just want the crispest picture you can get of the car and you're within 50 feet of it then use a flash and a normal shutter speed.