IXUS400 (S400) water shots

[mike j]

Can anyone tell me whether it is possible to take shots like these great photos (taken by Laziferous) using my IXUS400 (S400) ?

They were taken with a G2 with a shutter speed somewhere in the region of 1/4 or 1/5 second.

On the IXUS400, you seem to be able to manually set the shutter speed from 1 - 15 seconds to take night shots, but 1 second in daylight just comes out totally white.

Can I set the shutter speed manually to less than this, or is there another trick I can use ?

Or is the IXUS400 just not suitable for taking photos like these ?

Thanks,
Mike.

[rmsds]

I don't know the options the IXUS 400 has, but like Laziferous said, if it's possible, put the camera it Tv mode (shutter priority) and that allows you to set shutter speed. Then you choose a speed of about 1/5 of a second (can be diferent according to the light conditions).
The longer the time, the more "silky" will the water look (I think).

You must however use a tripod or else you may have a beautiful waterfall but everything else will be blurred...

Note that I don't have a DC yet, all this I say is based on what I've read... but I think I'm not wrong.

Ricardo

[Nill Toulme]

Mike, because you really have no control over shutter speed with the S400, the only way I can think of to accomplish this is to put the camera on a tripod (which you'd want to do anyway), and hold a neutral density filter over the lens. That should force a somewhat slower shutter speed. I suppose you might be able to accomplish the same thing to a certain extent with a polarizer, but probably not to a sufficient degree.

Just for grins you could experiment by shooting through your sunglasses to see if it moves you in the right direction.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

[carl.h]

Hi!
I am the happy owner of a Ixus 400.

Regarding your questions about the water-shots I understand the problem with total whiteout pictures if you set the shutter speed to 1sek. I tried to set the white balance manually yesterday by pointing the camera into a brigt spotlight. The picture came off better, but I havnt been able to test this fully yet.

The ultimate would be to point the camera to the sun and set the whitebalance, but I dont know if I dare. Are there any risks with this?

/Carl

[Littlenose]

I'm also very iterested in finding out what is possible with the ixus 400 for water photography.

[carl.h]

If we (owners of the ixus400/s400) are to be able to take photos like this, I think a polarization filter would be the best, used together with a slow shutter-speed. I tried out to use 2 ND filters without sucess in bright daylight. The image was total whiteout.

[Moly]

I've been thinking about ways to do this too... unfortunately its not possible to control the aperture settings on the 400.

pointing at a bright light and locking the exposure is a good idea IMO but havent tried it yet.

looked like the filter was a good idea too, but seeing the post above maybe not.

a friend of mine suggested that Canon may have not included certain features (like the control of aperture) on the 400 so that there was a good reason to buy one of the higher end models! I think I agree to a ceratin extent, although it's obvious when looking at the photos from something like a 10d, that you gain more than just more control

[mike j]

moly wrote:
a friend of mine suggested that Canon may have not included certain features (like the control of aperture) on the 400 so that there was a good reason to buy one of the higher end models!

I think it looks like we'll just have to accept that the IXUS400 is a very small, stylish, compact little camera and despite being loaded with great features, it does have the odd limitation.

I guess I really chose size and style over these more advanced features, otherwise I'd have probably ended up with something like the larger (and cheaper !) A70, which I believe has the Tv mode (so that you can set the shutter speeds manually to less than 1 sec etc).

At the end of the day, I chose a point and shoot camera that I could slip in the pocket so I guess I'll have to dig out the old (conventional) Canon SLR for anything adventurous like the water shots that I mentioned.

Thanks for your replies - just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing a trick somehow !

Mike.

[Moly]

Mike,

couldn't agree more with your comments.
I don't regret buying the 400 one bit, its a fantastic bit of kit in a tiny package, macro mode can give stunning results, and the lense is obviously a quality item for normal photos.

So, looks like you can't have your cake and eat it (small
package+advanced features), but it's a damn good compromise and generally does 99% of what you ask it to.... and at the end of the day, I'd rather be able to slip it in and out of pocket and not have full shutter control, than have the full shutter control and have to have it in a bag instead.

Anybody reading this sholdn't be put of buying one IMO.

Martin

[stopbath]

carl.h wrote:
If we (owners of the ixus400/s400) are to be able to take photos like this, I think a polarization filter would be the best, used together with a slow shutter-speed. I tried out to use 2 ND filters without sucess in bright daylight. The image was total whiteout.

Using 2ND filters would give you a light value of decreased 2 EV. This may not even effect your shutter speeds if the camera decided to use the f-stop as a way to get more light.

Best bet? Use the smallest ISO setting you can, use a cloudy day, use a ND filter or more. Use a polarizer too if you got one... Perhaps sunrise or sunset might really be cool. The camera will likely try to keep the shutter speeds up to avoid camera shake, so you'll have to wait for the f-stop to get wide open before getting decent blurring speeds.

Note: Use grey or white subject for setting white balance. A pocket grey card, white plastic or paper will do. Using the sun may not work too well, as you have the blue sky in the shot too. Try to put the white balance object where your real subject is. This way, any colour casting will be compensated for.