Photo Tips For A Newbie(Taking A Trip)

[Myk249]

Hi All,

I have been lurking around for a short while now and think the forum is great!

I purchased my first digital camera last Xmas, an A40. We are planning a trip at the end of the month to Disney and would like some thoughts on the best way to get some great pictures, outside in daylight, at night, inside and also shooting the fireworks. Up to this point I have been using the camera fairly regularly, however, not for anything that was "important". I know how the camera works and how to set the different shooting modes. I am ideally looking for some tips for some of the best shots and settings for each circumstance.

Also, I am trying not to bring my laptop for downloading pics to. I have 256, 64, and 8 meg CF cards. Do you think that's enough for the biggest, best quality pics the camera can take?

Thanks for any help!

[PacAce]

myk249 wrote:
Hi All,

I have been lurking around for a short while now and think the forum is great!

I purchased my first digital camera last Xmas, an A40. We are planning a trip at the end of the month to Disney and would like some thoughts on the best way to get some great pictures, outside in daylight, at night, inside and also shooting the fireworks. Up to this point I have been using the camera fairly regularly, however, not for anything that was "important". I know how the camera works and how to set the different shooting modes. I am ideally looking for some tips for some of the best shots and settings for each circumstance.

Also, I am trying not to bring my laptop for downloading pics to. I have 256, 64, and 8 meg CF cards. Do you think that's enough for the biggest, best quality pics the camera can take?

Thanks for any help!


You have a total of 328 MB of storage and the A40 can store just about the same number (326) of images on these cards. That's equivalent to 13 1/2 rolls of 24-frame film or 9 rolls of 36-frame film. For some people that's a lot of pictures. But then, for others, that may not be enough. Only you can determine if 326 pictures are enough for your needs.

As for as when and where to shoot in Disney (Land? World?) and what settings to use, I really can't help you there. However, if you are going to take night shots, I'm assuming you're going to be taking along a tripod unless you intend to use a flash for all your night shots.

You can also try handholding some night shots without a tripod or flash as long as the subject is well lit, but you'll have to set the camera in Manual mode and the shutter speed to no less than 1/60 unless you really have very steady hands. You'll have to play around with the aperture to get the best result. You may even end up just opening it all the way. Also set the ISO to 400 although at this setting you may get a lot of noise that'll make your picture look grainy. However, a grainy picture is still better than NO picture.

[Myk249]

Thanks for the info PacAce.

Will the settings you suggested also work for shooting the fireworks?

We will be at Disney World.

I do intend to bring a tripod/bipod of some sort, I am currently shopping around for something small, lightweight, and of decent quality. I don't want to worry about carrying to many things around.

Upon reflection, my question regarding enough storage space was stupid. I knew that!

[PacAce]

myk249 wrote:
Thanks for the info PacAce.

Will the settings you suggested also work for shooting the fireworks?

We will be at Disney World.

I do intend to bring a tripod/bipod of some sort, I am currently shopping around for something small, lightweight, and of decent quality. I don't want to worry about carrying to many things around.

Upon reflection, my question regarding enough storage space was stupid. I knew that!

Believe it or not, with the fireworks pictures, you can use the regular settings you use for daylight pictures. However, you have to set these manually because the auto exposure system won't be able to do it for you. For more details, click on "Search" at the top of this page. In the "Seach Phrase" box, type in "fireworks" and do a search in the "G3 Forum" and the "EOS DSLR Forum". You will find a couple of threads that cover this topic in detail. Although the cameras are different, the settings are more than applicable to your camera as well.

And your question regarding the storage capacity was NOT a stupid question. Different cameras have different capacities. On my EOS 10D camera, 328 MB would definitely NOT be enough, but on yours, it seems more than adequate. So, you did have a legitimate concern about your storage capacity.

Good luck on your Disney World trip and I'm sure you'll enjoy it. If you're ever in MGM studios and do the animation tour, while you're in the "waiting" area where they have all these monitors of animators and their characters being displayed, see if you can find my brother in one of the videos. He's the one who did "Ursula, the Sea Hag" in "The Little Mermaid". I'm not sure if they're still playing that video but they still were a couple of years back.

[Myk249]

Wow! That's an awesome job, your brother must love it. I've done the tour previously (a couple of years ago) and probably seen him! We are going to MGM this trip, however, I don't think we are going to have time to take the tour.

Thanks for the tips on the fireworks shots, lots of great info to be had.

[Andy_T]

Hi MYK249,

there are some pretty exhaustive threads on fireworks on this here forum...

Regards,
Andy