Manual settings for A40?

[Saint]

This weekend I took around 250 1600x1200 superfine photos with the A40 at my friend's country get-together.

It worked great! I want to start experimenting with the different manual features.

Now, while I understand the concept of shutter speed (i.e. faster or slower depending on what the scene is, if the object is moving etc), I'm still confused by the "aperture" setting.

There appear to be only 2 different aperture choices at any given time, and when I change it to the "larger" setting, I get a dark dark picture.

Any other important settings I should be playing with?

[cifangao]

the aperture selecting range changes according to the shutter speed you select.

[Rustle]

Increasing your aperature allows more light into the camera, thus enabling faster shutter speeds. As well, it affects depth-of-field (how much of the picture is in focus or out of focus).

Russ

[Saint]

If INCREASING my aperture allows more light then how come when I increase it the LCD gets 'DARKER' ?

[papa]

Saint wrote:
If INCREASING my aperture allows more light then how come when I increase it the LCD gets 'DARKER' ?



Aperture refers to the lens opening. When its increased you let more light in and the image gets brighter. Decreasing the apeture makes the image darker.

What makes this totally confusing is the way aperture values are assigned using f/stops. Its completely backwards. A larger aperture value (f/stop) means a smaller lens opening and thus a darker image. A smaller f/stop means a a larger lens opening, more light, and thus a brighter image.

Are you even more confused now?

[Saint]

Got it...

But then why would I want LESS light? Wouldn't more light be almost always the best?

Or is less light better for bright days?

[Rustle]

Yep, aperature is somewhat confusing.

You'd want less aperature if you want to decrease the depth of field. I can't draw it for you, so here's a good link:

http://www.megapixel.net/html/articles/article-dof.html

Russ

[type3]

Think of it like this

f4 means 1/4
f16 means 1/16

thus big aperture number mean little hole in lens and not much light therefore dark picture. This results in big depth of field.

Think ... big number ... big depth of field
and vice versa

Ability to alter depth of field is one of the things that sets the A40 apart from its competitors.

buy a cheap "How to use an SLR Camera" book and all will be clear (or if you use depth of field effectively, only the things you care about will be clear).

regards

[Saint]

What's "depth of field" exactly?

[Rustle]

Depth of field refers to how much depth is in focus. So, more DOF means that more objects in the picture will be in focus, whereas a smaller DOF means that objects in the background/foreground will blur.

Have you read the link I posted? It's about the best explanation I've come across and explains why DOF is difficult to do with a point-and-shoot digital camera.

http://www.megapixel.net/html/articles/article-dof.html

Russ

[type3]

How did you get on with depth of field?

Here is another way of thinking about it.

When you are talking to someone close to you, and you are looking at them directly, they are generally the thing that you focus on, and most other objects in the room are out of focus (or at least - less noticeable). If on the other hand the person you are talking to and looking at is on the other side of the room, there will be lots of other things in your "field" of vision to distract you.

In photography people use depth of field to help focus attention on a single object, like a flower or a person, while blurring out the stuff in the foreground and background which may be distracting to the viewer.

It is also important because photos have only two dimensions up/down, and side to side, but photographers often want to add the third dimension "depth" so that the photo is more life like. Photos without depth are often described as flat, or boring.

Probably the best way to get the effect with the A40 is to zoom the lens right out, and then shoot your object in a shaded area. This should be enough to trick the camera into producing a (relatively) shallow depth of field.

It might help to use a tripod or camera support since the shutter speeds are likely to be slower too.

Hope this helps.