[ IXUS ] Tips for good indoor / low light shots

[Novell]

Hi all. I'm new to digital photography and I recently just bought my first digital camera - the IXUS II a.k.a. SD100.

1) I noticed that when I take indoor shots (at night), using the standard auto setting, I get really warm pictures with the flash shining too bright on the subject and making the background dark. What am I doing wrong here?

2) Another senario is that if I want to take own photo (arms extended, hold and point camera towards my self, press half shutter and click), the picture almost always make my face really bright with yellow flash and dark background. How do I take a "natural" picture with flash in this case?

3) When I take macro shots (again, indoor at night) on auto setting, the flash would totally ruin the shot leaving the picture grossly overexposed. How do I take bright but evenly-lit macro shots?

Please help as it is frustrating for a newbie like me.

Any other tips for taking good indoor / night shots / low lights would be appreaciated. Thanks.

[atkinson1]

Hi! I got the same camera about 5 weeks ago, and I love it.

There are some reasons for your problems which I don't really have time to explain at the moment, but they are mostly problems that normal film cameras would make too - general lighting rules.

You should experiment and play around with different flash modes and no flash at all. I find sometimes using a tripod, and turning off the flash is better. You can improve the white balance in manual mode by setting the lighting (eg. tungsten/fluorescent).

This camera does night shots great. I picked up a great second hand tripod for cheap, and I've been experimenting with night photos and had some great results.

Get a tripod. Go into manual mode. Put the focus on infinity, turn off the flash, set the ISO and White Balance to auto, turn the timer on for 10 seconds, then compose and take the shot. Step back from the tripod so you dont bump it and wait for the 10 seconds until it has been taken.

[Novell]

atkinson1, thanks for the suggestions. But I'm thinking that if I'm at weddings or dinner functions, I'd probably just point-and-shoot. I don't think I'm going to bring a tripod or fiddle with the settings a lot just to take a picture, that would be impractical and cumbersome.

Is there no way to get around this, maybe reduce the flash's intensity? All I want is to get the subject's face bright but evenly lit and not have the background go dark. Is there no way of doing this without using tripod?

Someone suggested that I move father away from the subject and use the zoom, but will only work in certain situations. The senario #2 in my first post certainly can't be use here.

Any other suggestions?

[jlocatell]

add

Use long exposure - evaluate how many secs.
Do not use flash
Use 2" self-timer

Shoot & Shoot & ...

-jl

[mike j]

I've found the best way to take indoor macro shots with the IXUS400 is to mount it on a tripod, use the timer, disable flash, leave the other settings on automatic and illuminate the subject with another light source, eg. desklamp.

Here's one I've taken using this method :

http://mikejames.fotopic.net/photo.php?id=728924

The IXUS will only focus properly if there's enough light so increase the amount of light if it won't focus.

As for your other problems, I have the same ones too. The flash intensity can't be adjusted, so you can't get too close to your subject if you're going to use it.

Mike.

[till]

The flash intensity CAN be adjusted. If you turn on the flash or the camera decides to use the flash the exposure compensation adjusts the flash intensity (with flash off the exposure compensation adjusts the shutter speed. Exposure time is always 1./60 sec when taking photos with flash (see EXIF data of your flash photos) and the camera has no aperture, so the only parameter which the exposure compensation can adjust is the flash intensity. I have tried it out, the flash intensity is really adjusted by the exposure compensation.

Till