Newb s95 owner with ?'s

Just got this camera a few days ago. I am very new to photography and all this new vocabulary is a little intimidating. Some words of encouragement would be great about now. What are some good settings to shoot in for a beginner? Also I feel like I need to study or take class or something to use this camera to it's fullist. As a beginner, where are some good places to check out (online) as far as basic digital photography goes?

Wlecome to POTN! First, I would just shoot, see what you get on auto, then start on Av, which will set the appropriate shutter speed automatically if you set the focal length.

A good start is "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson. The basics and more. B&H photo and Adorama have online courses if you like tutorials. Also, www.canonusa.com also has free tutorials, I think five of them, that are for DSLRs, but the S95 has most of the features that they talk about.

Read the "sticky's" at the top of each forum. Most of what's found in the link below can be applied to the S95...

Look here

good stuff fellas, thanks. Time to go out and test.

tvphotog wrote in post #12808874
...Adorama have online courses if you like tutorials.

We do indeed, and all completely free of charge - and if you are struggling to find the link: http://www.adorama.com​/alc/

BTW, I'm only ever an email away for advice or after-sales support with any aspect of purchasing from Adorama: elen@adorama.com

I found the camera a bit of a disapointment on auto. Here's what I have picked up so far and seems to work we'll:

Set the camera to P mode (this gets much better shots than auto. Although it does capture raw in this mode you can set it to either raw,raw+jpeg or just jpeg)
Set the exposure to -1/3
Set the flash to -2/3

Once you get a bit more confident try AV mode.

heh, mine likes +1/3 on exposure and +1/3 - +2/3 on flash : manufacturing tolerances i guess