A little help for a new guy..

Well I'm new to the whole photography thing. Started using my dads g6. Sorry if this is in the wrong place, just looking for a little help and advice. I've used the camera a little, But still not getting the results im looking for. I've been told to get a circle polarizer, and i've searched around, but theres too much to look at. Any tips for the camera, and all that mumbo jumbo?

Heres a few shots..

Hello and welcome to POTN! Yes, a circular polarizer would work well with your photos. It will cut the glare and deepen the colors. But to attach one to the G6 you will need a lens adapter. Canon makes them for the G6 and it is a good product, but I have the one made by Lensmate and it works well. You attach the adapter to the camera, and then screw on the polarizer. The Lensmate adapter comes in 2 sizes, 52mm and 58mm. I would suggest getting the 52mm if you are after the polarizer, since filters of a smaller diameter are cheaper than bigger ones.

Any disadvantage to using the smaller size?

Not much. It will prevent you from using the Canon wide angle and telephoto attachments, which I believe require a 58mm filter size. On the other hand, there are other excellent lens attachments made by Olympus, Kenko, Tiffen to name a few that require the 52mm size. All these can be viewed at the Lensmate site.

The 52mm tube will be smaller and block less of the view when you use the optical viewfinder. Some people may find this irritating, while others don't as they hardly use the viewfinder anyway. I do, but it doesn't bother me. If I had the 58mm adapter I probably won't be bothered too.

The onboard flash will be partially blocked with both adapters, you will need an external flash for flash pictures or take the adapter out. I'm not sure if the focus assist beam will be blocked - I don't use thos anyway.

Play around with the other modes also. Vivid will punch up the colors also.

In your first two photos, it appear that the camera's auto white balance got fooled by the sunlight in the background. The colors appear a little cool (blueish.) You might want to read up on doing a manual white balance in the manual. I think that would have helped those two images.

Michael

Alternatively, you can shoot in RAW format and correct the WB in post processing.