How to's with Canon SD300? Please help

[dlomonosov]

Hey guys this is my first post.. I joined this site to learn how to shoot better pics with a camera. Me and my girlfriend own Canon SD300 and always used it in Auto mode with Auto or Auto with readeye flash and pics that are outside during a day come out good but night pics or pics inside the house or home that are taking with a light on or off during the day come out bad, because the flash is used and images have flash right in the middle, just do not good or natural.

I know this camera is no DSLR, but I know I could do better. So, last few days I read few threads on here and took out the manual for the camera and just tried to use different modes and took test pictures for last few days and then compared them on my laptop.

I can say that I love the way pictures come out with manual mode better then Auto. I also looked at specs of how sample pics were taken off of Canon website with this camera. I got the outside daylight pics down to almost perfect, but have problems shooting pics inside the office during the day with florasent light on and at night in the nightclub with a little or no light. unless I use a flash, pics come out blury. I know when you do not use a flash in dim places and you do not have tripod, your hands still shake a little and pics come out blury. These are the modes I use:

Outside sunny day pic of something 50 feet away:
Shooting Mode: Manual
White Balance: Custom, Cloudy (auto is ok but is dimmer)
ISO: 50
Photo Effect: none
Metering Mode: Evalutive
Flash: non

I tried to photo a person inside the office with lights on and it came out ok but still not perfect:

Shooting Mode: Manual
White Balance: Flouresant
ISO: 50
Photo Effect: Vivid
Metering Mode: Center-weighted Average or Evaluative
Flash: Auto with read eye
Exposure Compensation: -1

And pic came out almost the same as in full auto just auto was a bit more flash then needed?! If I do not use flash the image is blury, because I have hands that are not super sturdy, would the new SD700 IS with image stabiliser would solve this problem? I also do not see any samples on Canon website of these kind of pics, does that mean that you have to use flash with these cameras?

Also how about insidethe night club pics, how do you take them, lets say if I want to take picture of the people at the table and a pic of the whole club inside, what modes would you use? And then picture of lets say broadway at night with all the lights on on the street? Need some help..

[shrugs*]

You can put up your ISO for easier handheld shots, but there'll be a significant amount more grain/noise.

There's also the long exposure/night mode if you goto the Exposure Compensation and hit the Menu button. However, with a tripod/solid ground it won't do you much good :\

For in the club, try using a low flash level with a pretty long exposure (1"). That'll expose the people, freeze most movements, and allow for the background to be exposed. At night on the street, you'll want to try the night mode with a sturdy place to rest the camera. For the long exposures you'll want to keep the ISO down to 50 to avoid allllot of noise.

I love my SD300, but (as with most point and shoots), sometimes it's a mixed bag of trial and error to get results.