indoor difficulties

[sagin]

Need some help here folks.

I'm fairly new to digital photography.

Using a Canon S30 and really liking it. However, it seems that when I shoot indoors, the shots are very dark. Takes great outdoor pics in the sunshine, but indoors is not so good.

I'm using just the "auto" setting for now.

What would you suggest for better quality indoor shots?

And thanks for your help.

[Rustle]

I assume that you're trying to avoid flash photography. If so, you need to increase the exposure of your shots. There are a few ways to do that, all of which require that you take the camera off of 'Auto'.

I use Program AE most of the time. It automatically determines a shutter speed and aperature (which you can change, if you like). In this mode, you can either adjust your exposure compensation, use auto-bracketing, or change your ISO to brighten your shots.

Adjusting the exposure upwards will over-expose the shot so that you gather more light. If you use auto exposure-bracketing (AEB), the camera will take three pics as quickly as possible at different exposures (middle, under, over). Then, you can choose the one that you prefer. So, if you set AEB to +1/-1, your camera will take three differently-exposed shots: 0, +1 , -1. If you also adjust your exposure by +1, then the shots will be +1, 0, +2. Note that you cannot use flash with AEB.

Changing the ISO changes the sensor's sensitivy to light. This is useful in low-light, as you can set the camera to a higher ISO (200, 400, 800) so that it quickly gathers a lot of light. This also results in faster shutter speeds. Try it by locking your exposure to see the shutter speed, then changing the ISO and locking again. On the higher ISO, the shutter speed will be faster. However, the quality of your pics will decrease as you'll get a grainy texture and fuzzier images.

The other method I know of is to decrease your shutter speed. That's the Shutter-priority mode on your camera. Basically, you're telling the camera to leave the shutter open longer and gather more light. Of course, the longer the shutter is open, the more prone you are to camera shake, so this is mainly a tripod method.

Am I forgetting anything?

I prefer adjusting the ISO if I want to avoid flash. Sometime's I'll play with exposure settings, but I'm not very good at that (partly because I find the S30's LCD overly bright, and partly because I'm inexperienced). I'll adjust the shutter when I've got a tripod (which isn't very often).

Try 'em all. It's not like you're wasting film...

Russ