Auto or manual mode for vacation pics with PowerShot S400?

[Kristi]

I've had my Canon PowerShot S400 for a few weeks and am going on vacation a week from now. I'm still learning and practicing. At first, I thought I would use the auto mode because it is the easiest but the outdoor photos are too bright and the indoor photos show the walls and drapes in the background as gray instead of off-white. I'm not sure as to the settings for the manual mode such as exposure, light metering, etc. Any and all advice will be very much appreciated.

Kristi

[platinumdoc]

Outdoor: Try bracketing exposures by adjusting EV ( -1 to - 1.5).

In door: Set your own white balance by getting a white sheet of paper in the available light. You will need to adjust as you change lighting. You may want to experiment with white balance (Tungsten tends to work well).

[Tom W]

My opinion - manual. ISO 100 outdoors, 200 indoors even with flash. I prefer center focus point, though the AFiF works pretty well also. I like center-weighted metering most of the time, unless the subject is complex in contrast.

I generally use auto-color balance, but if you are shooting indoors without flash (probably should use 400 ISO), you might want to set it to "tungsten" if you are under ordinary light, or "flourescent" if necessary. This can make a big difference in color cast.

Also, don't leave your computer monitor out of the equation. It may seem bright on outdoor pictures due to poor brightness/color/contrast adjustments. There are some sites on the web that provide tools with which to adjust your monitor to get relatively close to reality in those parameters.

Enjoy your vacation.

[Kristi]

Thank you for your suggestions which I will try this weekend. I don't know whether I will be able to go outside to take pictures because it's raining.

As for the color in the pictures, I noticed that the colors were off when I looked at them through the LCD in the camera and the computer's monitor. I wanted to see how the pictures looked developed so I had some photos developed at the digital camera printer at Long's Drug Store.

Another question: Is it better to delete all images or reformat the compact flash memory card?

Kristi

[Tom W]

I don't know if it makes much difference if you delete them or format, but if you do format, do it with the camera. There have been times where people formatted the card with the computer through a card reader and the camera wouldn't recognize the card properly. The solution was to reformat with the camera.

[stopbath]

I delete individual images, as needed, but when use format to clean up the card of all images (such as after I've downloaded.)

[platinumdoc]

I don't know if it makes much difference if you delete them or format, but if you do format, do it with the camera. There have been times where people formatted the card with the computer through a card reader and the camera wouldn't recognize the card properly. The solution was to reformat with the camera.

My biggest mistake was using a card reader and "Cutting" the folder from the card and saving to the hard drive. That's when my card stopped working.

IMO the best options would be to 1) reformat the card in the CAMERA or 2) erase the images from the card from the camera.