I have a Sony cybershot DSC-H3 and I have a question...

[ferret_lovr]

I am a beginner photographer and I just bought this camera to practice while I save for a digital SLR. The question I have is that the Advanced Sport mode (which obviously takes fast moving pictures) is completely dark and I cannot see anything at all unless it is lit up, like a comp screen or something and my room is very bright. When I used that mode in the store on the display camera it worked great! I want to be able to use this mode for my primary reason for buying this camera....animal photography. Can anybody help me with this? The mode says the flash settings cannot be changed from what they are, which is no flash. I have no clue what to do. No settings or anything.... Please help. I want to finally start using my new camera.

 

[Steph]

I don't know the specifics about your camera but when in sport mode, your camera uses a fast shutter speed (to freeze movement), therefore the sensor does not have much time to collect light. If there's a lot of light around, you'll get a picture. If it is too dark, the image will be really dark (underexposed). If you want to understand a bit more about this, Google 'exposure' and how it depends on aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings. Alternatively, [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Exposure-Photographs-Digital-Updated/dp/0817463003/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1230108889&sr=8-1"]'Understanding Exposure'[/ame] by Bryan Peterson is a good book to understand the basics of exposure. Hope that helps.

Edit: no need to double post.

 

[nicholasw]

Try using the "Advanced Sports" mode outdoors where there is plenty of light, I am not familiar with the camera but it seems in this mode it may take photos only in the fastest of shutter speeds. If you are familiar with how camera's generally work, then crank the ISO up a notch, aperture down. You should start seeing an image.

 

[revilo]

I have the H10, which is the H3, only with an updated screen. You can't change ISO in the sports mode, and the exposure compensation doesn't do much, so I suggest using the manual mode, setting shutter speeds faster than 1/250th of a second, and putting the ISO as high as you need it. At ISO 1600 and 3200, the noise is pretty bad, but 1600 is OK as long as you get the exposure right.

 

[brutal]

i had a this problem for ages, "flash settings cannot be changed", so I could never take photos at night, they were always blurry. Just recently I was playing around with the settings, I changed the record mode to "normal" (shoot once per press of the shutter). It had been set to "burst" (shoot continuously as the shutter is pressed down. Now I can change the flash settings in most the modes!