Please advise

[RonS50]

I would like to get some tips on what settings I can set on my S50 to take some night shots of my granddaughter barrel racing her horse. The arena is not very well lit and I'm not sure if the horse will react badly to the flash. I would like to set it on continous mode to capture about 4-5 sec. as she rounds the barrel. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated. Also should I pre focus for that distance? maybe focus on the barrel and then lock in that distance.

[dtrayers]

Might be tough with the low light.

Prefocus is a good idea. I'd also recommend shooting in RAW mode and you might be able to get another stop or so of exposure in the conversion.

If you don't mind the noise, then boost ISO to 200. 400 might be just too noisy.

Use Tv mode and set it to at least 1/100 sec. Any slower and you'll get a lot of motion blur.

The most important part is to shoot a couple of test shots of another rider rounding the barrel and look at the histogram. Don't judge the exposure from what you see on the LCD. If the right side of the histogram is at least to the center or better yet in the right third of the display then you stand a pretty good chance of getting the exposure right. Look at the image to see if 1/100 is fast enough. Remember that faster means less light and underexposed.

Then, when everything is set, turn off the LCD and put the camera in high speed burst mode. Frame the shot using the viewfinder. You'll get the fastest frame rate that way.

Oh yes, post some pictures here of the event! Good luck!

[RonS50]

Dave, Thanks so much for the advice and I will certainly try your ideas. I might should have added that I am new to photography and have only been working with Photoshop Elements for about a month, I find it frustrating to say the least. Working with RAW mode seems to be an advanced technique and to be honest I don't know if I have the skill level. I'm still amazed at the level of pictures I get when I shoot on auto and plug the camera into the Canon printer and use the crop tool to compose my shots. Maybe we should have a newbie forum so that us amateurs don't muck up the forum. :D

[dtrayers]

Here's an article about using RAW mode. The camera referred to may be the Digital Rebel, but for RAW the same applies to the S50.

Keep in mind that Photoshop Elements cannot work with 16-bit images (you'll read about that in the lesson).

http://www.photoworkshop.com/canon/lessons_16-20.html

Click on the "Working with RAW Files" lesson.