Your advise needed very badly

[SaharaWizard]

Hello guys

I recently purchased a camera after reading rave reviews about its full control and many manual modes. I have taken about 300 photos so far and I am about to kill myself.

I am a long time user of Canon and Yashica film and can not figure out if this normal for digital or not.

I post 2 typical photos I have taken today (the original right out of camera version) Please take a look and tell me why are they like this!


Both were taken outside in bright sunny day with very interesting setting and subjects. ISO was 64 and Whitebalance at SHADE. f8 , 1/20 sec.
I had a polarizer filter on if it makes any difference.

Is this normal for digital camera?
http://www.chmc.ca/test25.jpg
or
http://www.chmc.ca/test17.jpg

Thanks in advance
SW

[SkipD]

It appears that the photo was underexposed pretty radically.

Does your camera have a through-the-lens meter or a meter that picks up the light from a different vantage point?

If the meter is not measuring light that is coming through the lens, then you need to add a couple stops to the exposure for the filter.

If the meter is reading light coming through the lens (like SLR's do), then it should compensate for the filter automatically.

[SaharaWizard]

I beive it is through lens. But why is the sky s grainy even at ISO 64??

UPDATE:

It is "TTL 64-zone metering" according to manual.

[SkipD]

I beive it is through lens. But why is the sky s grainy even at ISO 64??It's because the shot was severely underexposed. That happens with digital cameras, even the best of them.

[SaharaWizard]

Thanks Skip, almost is nothing ever focused is this due tomy error too? In large size everything is fuzzy. I can not find a single point anywhere that I can say this camera was focusing for.

[DocFrankenstein]

What camera did you buy?

[SaharaWizard]

S5200 fuji finepix. It s the closest thing I could find to a film camera (while being less expansive then a Leica). It has all the manual things, but sadly pictures stink!

[Biko]

EXIF info say: Exposure Bias Value = -1.33EV on both pics.

Metering mode is on spot

Also note your second pic was 1/20 sec and so produced a bllurred shot due to being handheld.

I would check your camera settings and remove polarising filter and take some test shots

[DocFrankenstein]

Doesn't look typical for a 2005 point and shoot.

BTW: What yashica did you use in film? If it's a contax/yashica SLR and you have lenses for it you can pick up a used 300D for 300 bucks or so. With an adapter you'll be able to use the lenses you have on your digital camera.

[SaharaWizard]

Damn you guys are good, what is EXIf and how did you get t that fom a JPG?
My Yashica was a FX-D Incredible camera, I had dropped it on every road from Aisa to Europe it still worked magnificently. Sadly it did not survived being dropped in a lake!
I had a T70 also which was great. They havent started making digital cameras like that I suppose.

[Biko]

EXIF is the info you get from the photo, I have taken a screenshot of your 2nd pic. I use opanda in firefox, you can search for it I think also works in IE, just r.click and shows info. Some pics show nothing due to exif being stripped when save for web.

http://www.btinternet.com/~i.c.palmer/exif.jpg

[DocFrankenstein]

Damn you guys are good, what is EXIf and how did you get t that fom a JPG?
My Yashica was a FX-D Incredible camers, I had dropped it on every road from Aisa to Europe it still worked magnificently. Sadly it did not survived being dropped in a lake! :)
I had a T70 also which was great. They havent started making digital cameras like that I suppose.
They cost.

What glass do you have? You'll be able to use all of your yashica glass on a canon.

[SaharaWizard]

Had a pretty good collection of FD Canon and Yashica ML lenses (no Zeiss ones but if you know what ML to pick they are almost as good).
After losing the FX-D I gave all the lenses up. After present disasterous experience with digital stuff I think I will be going back to film.

I do lots of street photography and I noticed by the time the damned thing focused and was ready to take a photo subjects were no longer on the street!

[Wilt]

I do lots of street photography and I noticed by the time the damned thing focused and was ready to take a photo subjects were no longer on the street!

The problem is all the automation that we expect in modern cameras, combined with the slower processors that are put into P&S cameras to keep production costs down. So when you press the shutter button, the camera needs to choose a focus point, focus, take a light reading and determine what f/stop and shutter speed, and pick the color balance and sometimes even chose the ISO value best suited for the lighting available.

The lag time irritation is the reason why so many buy into dSLRs; the manufacturers have figured out how to separate you from more of your money by making it so irritating to use P&S cameras. (The early generation automagic film SLRs like the Canon 620 were almost as bad as most P&S are today, compared to my manual focus film SLRs! The buying into the modern dSLR will also get you into buying more lenses and flash units and remote control shutter release, and lens hoods etc. :rolleyes:

[BottomBracket]

........I do lots of street photography and I noticed by the time the damned thing focused and was ready to take a photo subjects were no longer on the street!

Hi SW, I read that your camera has a claimed shutter lag of .01 seconds, which is quite fast for this camera. What slows it down is the time the lens focusses, apparently it is too slow for your liking. You can do one of two things - first is to get used to the shutter lag and adjust your shooting style accordingly to anticipate the moment. Second, I see that the S5200 has a manual focussing ability. You can use this to set the lens to focus on a hyperfocal distance, which will render everything from near distance to infinity in sharp focus. Since the focus is preset, the shutter lag will be greatly diminished. read more about hyperfocal distance here: http://www.dofmaster.com/hyperfocal.html
(http://www.dofmaster.com/hyperfocal.html)

[Hellashot]

So you had a -1 1/3 EC dialed in when shooting snow. And with snow you often need to use a +1 or more EC due to the extra reflectivity of snow.

So your problem was wrong exposure compensation dialed in, using too low an ISO to get a decent shutter speed, and using too small an appeture.

On a P&S camera there is rarely a need to use f8 since is would give you the DOF of f32 on a film camera.

[PhotosGuy]

It has all the manual things, Then try this: Need an exposure crutch? (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=89123)

[SaharaWizard]

Thank you all for your useful advices.

BottomBracket it has a manual focus but forget using it. It requires simultaeous pressing af two buttons positioned in a difficult place. It is very slow and looking through that tiny viewfinder you be wasting time trying to focus.

This camera needed a mechanical ring which it does not have. S6000 apparently has a mechanical ring, but lacks other manual functions and f-range is very smal.
It is wired that new designers have forgotten 140+ years of building cameras, unless you are willing to pay 6000+ not one camera you can find that has the simple structure of cameras made 50 years ago! (while they cost 10 times that)

[BottomBracket]

Thank you all for your useful advices.

BottomBracket it has a manual focus but forget using it. It requires simultaeous pressing af two buttons positioned in a difficult place. It is very slow and looking through that tiny viewfinder you be wasting time trying to focus........


Hi SW, with hyperfocal focussing you only have to focus once. That setting will do for the rest of your street section, as every shot you will take will have everything in focus from a few feet to infinity. No need to fumble with focussing with every shot.