Need advise on shooting with Canon Ixus II

[janeyee]

I would like to take some photo of waterfall, river or flowing water
with the effect of the water becoming blur.

I do not have a SLR. I have a Canon Ixus II.

Is it possible to get that effect with the camera I have or only with a
SLR camera?

I also have some problem on focusing with Canon Ixus II.
It is not focusing on what I want.
Any advise how I can focus on the object I want while taking pictures?
Any settings or techniques?

Appreciate your kind advise.

Many thanks in advance.

Best regards,
Jane

[stopbath]

I'm not farmiliar with the model of camera you have, but to shoot a silky look with water you need a long exposure. The shorter the exposure you have the less the movement is blurred. The actual shutter speed needed is dependant on how much blur you want, and the speed of the water.

If you have shutter speed control, use that. Take a variety of shots and see what you like for the scene.

To help get longer exposure, you can shoot early or late in the day as the sun is closer to the horizon, or you can try overcast days. You can also shoot through grey or polarizer filters to block out some light.

Regarding the camera focusing on subjects you don't want, try to use one AF block, and confirm that it actually has gotten focus. The camera will still take a picture even if it hasn't locked in some focus.

[nosquare2003]

Ixus II is an automatic camera that users cannot control aperture nor shutter speed. It seems that the control can only be done in passive way by changing the ISO, however. Well, I think that it will be difficult for your purpose. There's no need to have an SLR / DSLR for taking waterfall, etc. But you need a camera that have a shutter priority control (should go together with aperture priority control) as advised by Stopbath.

[dtrayers]

You could try to put the camera in long shutter mode and set it to one second, but the camera will assume your trying to take a night picture and will open the aperture up all the way. So you'll really need some dim light or it will be over-exposed. It'll be a hit or miss at best.

In any event, you'll also need a tripod or some sort of support as there's no way you can handhold without camera shake blur.

As far as focus goes, you can set it to use the center focus point, focus on the subject, use focus lock (press the flower button as you hold the shutter release), recompose, and take the picture. But since the camera has a large depth of field, you can use landscape mode for anything beyond 10 feet (3 meters) or so.

[janeyee]

Thanks all. I actually tried and get a whole white pic. Which means too much light. I am a newbie at photography and really appreciate all your advise. Need to save for a SLR :(

[dtrayers]

As Nosquare said, you don't need an SLR, just a model camera which allows some manual control. The Canon A70 is an option with good resolution and more manual options.