so what do you guys think of the new S560?

just picked one up. had to replace the OLD sony cyber shot 3.3MG

big difference.

but is it me or does this camera take CLEAR SOFT pictures. not really SHARP pictures.

Be careful to distinguish focus from sharpness.

At macro distances, the depth of field is typically rather small - which means only part of the image is in focus. You have to be very careful where to place that point of sharpest focus.

Sharpness is actually about accutance rather than focus - and is done by a sharpening algorithm after the picture is taken, such as Unsharp Mask. Digital camera pictures tend to start out rather on the soft side - but many compacts tend to sharpen very aggressively and the files you finish up with on your memory card can be oversharpened. As I shoot RAW with my digital SLR, I can sharpen my images to taste - and whilst it is a matter of taste, I often don't sharpen as much as many compacts would.


Unfortunately many compacts are designed around the "heavy noise reduction, very saturated colours, heavy sharpening" philosophy, as that's what many consumers supposedly look for - but this can produce unnatural photos where fine detail is lost. The trend to market cameras based on how many megapixels doesn't help - you're often better off with fewer megapixels to have less noise in the image when you start out. Producing a 6x4 print really doesn't need 10 megapixels!

Canon compacts are pretty good at not going overboard on noise reduction, sharpening and colour saturation - but this means the 'look' of your images may well be different to your previous camera. If you can tune the amount of sharpening, saturation and so on, it may be worth experimenting with the options.


Meanwhile, if you're not happy with the results, or simply want some comments, there's nothing better than providing a picture! A crop from a full sized image may be the most use here. If you want to provide a full size image, post a link rather than embedding it into your post.

David

thanks for the reply i am starting to see what you mean, and understand it now.

say is there any good sites to read on what is what and how it should be used?

ISO,white levels, etc, etc.

like how to take better pictures and how to use the fuctions PROPERLY?

here is a couple pictures i did recently that i think look good.
youll see as they go on they get better, i have had the camera for 1 day now and have been playing with it alot.