Need S30 help

[bibber]

I have have had the Canon S30 for a few months, and so far I really like it a lot. The only problem is that I have not figured out how to take close up shots. By "close up" I mean from about a foot away. For instance, I wanted to take a picture of a book cover and have the book cover take up almost the whole picture. I also wanted to take a close picture of a watch I want to put on ebay.

I have tried the macro mode, portrait mode, and also using auto mode and just trying to focus on the object close up. It always comes out blurry. I have tried shooting against a white background so that the camera doesn't focus on something else in the background. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[pblevitt]

bibber

Nearly right, you need to use macro mode, preferabl in P mode. Then use manual focus.

Heven't done it very often myself, but a lot here have, and that seems to be the genreal consensus for starting.

[stardis]

I have an S30 and have taken a lot of pics in macro mode. I always set the mode dial to "P". When using macro mode the flower symbol (at least that's what it looks like to me) must be showing in the bottom right of the LCD screen. You need good light and you have to have the camera very steady. If you have a tendancy to move the camera when pressing the shutter button (as I do) you will get a blurry picture. I haven't been very successful using the manual focus--it just seems to hard to do for me although I have used it to good effect several times.

[technogran]

Another couple of ideas to add to the above. Use a tripod or prop the camera on something to hold it, so that you don't have to. Also set the self-timer to 10 sec. and let it release itself. No fear of camera movement on pushing the button that way. Hope it helps.