A70 - Techniques

[jeffk]

I have the Canon A70. I "think" I like this camera, however I may need some general educating on settings. I have a baby son that im trying to take pictues of. The conditions are low light (inside the house) and fast moving arms and legs. If I use the flash the pictures come out crystal clear but the true colors are drowned out by the flash. I opt to turn off the flash, but when I do this the picture blurrs when he is moving his legs and feet. I have tried many manuel setting and just can't seem to get it right. Im also using the Macro for close ups. What is the best setting for fast moving hands and feet without having to use the flash and in return not get any of the blurring effect. Is there a way to lightned up on the flash? What setting will work best for this situation? Anyone?? Thanks in advance for any input!

[PacAce]

jeffk wrote:
I have the Canon A70. I "think" I like this camera, however I may need some general educating on settings. I have a baby son that im trying to take pictues of. The conditions are low light (inside the house) and fast moving arms and legs. If I use the flash the pictures come out crystal clear but the true colors are drowned out by the flash. I opt to turn off the flash, but when I do this the picture blurrs when he is moving his legs and feet. I have tried many manuel setting and just can't seem to get it right. Im also using the Macro for close ups. What is the best setting for fast moving hands and feet without having to use the flash and in return not get any of the blurring effect. Is there a way to lightned up on the flash? What setting will work best for this situation? Anyone?? Thanks in advance for any input!



There are a few other things you could try. For starters, try using a higher ISO number, such as 200 or 400. Only catch here is that you may get some "noise" in the picture due to the higher ISO. If your pictures are still coming out blurry or the noise in unacceptable, you can try covering the flash with a piece of white paper or white translucent plastic to diffuse the flash output.

And if you're really comfortable using the A70 in manual mode, you can adjust the output of the flash. See page 112 of your A70 user's guide. Heck, even if you're not comfortable shooting in manual mode, give it a try anyway. Start out with aperture set to 4 or 5.6 and shutter speed set to 1/60 and then just try experimenting until you get the results you want.

If you're still getting too much flash even after the adjustment, try decreasing your aperture to 8 and/or increasing your shutter speed to 1/128 or 1/256.
Good luck.

[stopbath]

Try using Aperture Priority with the flash. Use f5.6 to f8. Also zoom out to telephoto mode. Since flash fall off is rapid, use distance to help get rid of washed out colours.

Do some tests to find your 'comfort zone' for taking flash pictures.

For macro, try using manual, and decrease the flash output to 1/3 (maybe 2/3). Again, f5.6 to f8.

Happy flashing!