Just got my PowerShot G6

Well yesterday I purchashed a Canon PowerShot G6. I have owned many digital cameras but this one by far is the best I have ever owned. I have not taken many pictures with it yet but the ones I have taken came out wonderful. So far I have just used it in Auto mode because I don't really know much about photography yet. I'm hoping to learn more as I progress and read all of your posts on these forums.

I am posting a macro shot that I took yesterday. I feel it came out alright but I would like everyone's opinion on it.

You know there's 'super macro' on the G6 as well! Great pic!

Wonderful photo... congratulations on your new camera!

Consider buying a Lensmate adapter for it -- www.lensmateonline.com. And switch to P mode which allows you to change some settings as you learn more. (It's like Auto but with options, whether you set them or not.)

Cheers,

Don

Thanks for the comments everyone! I think today I'm going to try and play around in P mode like Don Ellis said. Oh yeah and I would like to apologize for embedding the picture into the thread. I just read the announcement so now I know not to. Keep the comments coming.

A beautiful shot right out of the box. The light areas of the flower are blown out. And it's a good thing. If your first shots were perfect, there would be no incentive to learn the fine points of photography.

Blowing out the highlights are a common problem for newbie ar experienced user alike. If you expose for the flower, the bee is dark. If you expose for the bee, the flower is blown out. The rule of thumb (debated by some) is to expose for the bright spot. When you half press the shutter, you will see a green box. That is the metering and focusing area. Make sure the box is on the light area.

I just bought the book "A Short Course in the Canon G6" and I highly recommend it. It not only covers the principles of photography, it applies them to your camera.

Hi Leftturn99,

I was also considering that book, but after reading the reviews of the one on the G5 at amazon
I was skeptical. If you can check them out and tell me if you feel they are valid.

TIA

Joe

Edit

Just went back myself, it seems some of the "bad" reviews are gone?????
I could of sworn I read quite a few poor reviews of the book somewhere???

I was off to bed after my brief "P mode" recommendation last night. To explain further, one of the reasons I suggest P mode is the ability to set your exposure compensation.

In my experience, -1/3 generally works well for exposure compensation, and -2/3 for flash exposure compensation. These may need to change for particular scenes, but they're good starting points. And even if there's the occasional underexposure, it's always easier to retrieve detail from shadows than from highlights.

Cheers,

Don

Congratulations on your new camera!
You would be happy with it - it gives excellent photos on large formats and is definitely an excellent photographic tool. Some examples from my G6:
http://community.websh​ots.com …416054029/41610​9785pWbOYI
http://community.websh​ots.com …416054029/41611​9932JtXRts
http://community.websh​ots.com …384051790/38406​0458LTyfME
http://community.websh​ots.com …366898454/36690​2179CXpzGi
http://community.websh​ots.com …366898454/37906​1859CUxNms
http://community.websh​ots.com …379057270/35886​4867wQhKck full 16X Optical+Digital Zoom
Macro shots are easy, super macro mode allows better zoom without macro lens:
http://img115.imagesha​ck.us/img115/4688/IMG_​4071.jpg thorn macro
http://img115.imagesha​ck.us/img115/7365/IMG_​5428.jpg snail macro with flash
and PL filter examples:
http://img115.imagesha​ck.us/img115/4243/CRW_​6231c.jpg
http://img115.imagesha​ck.us/img115/9875/IMG_​5432c.jpg
The camera has also IR capabilities and you could try that too:
http://community.websh​ots.com …357031146/35885​9836GJsvXF
You may need Lensmate adapter and some filters(UV, PL, SkyLight-1B, IR), proper case, tripod, CF cards and PSD. Read carefully the camera user guide, try all the shooting modes P, Av, Tv, M, Raw format, macro, supermacro, night photos, etc. Exposure compensation should be normally 0, in some scenes you could change it. Be patient - anyway you will need at least 10 000 shots before you master all your camera possibilities. Keep shooting!

Greetings,
Roumen

Bosman, if you are an old hand at photography, it might not be as useful. I enjoyed it but I've had my G6 since Feb. What it does is teach you the principals of photography and apply it to the G6. Pretty useful for a beginner. Otherwise, the reviews at Steve's Digicams and DP Resourse are almost as good.

But, hey. If you learn 3 or 4 things you've overlooked, it's worth 24 bucks. And I did.

Congratulation on a new camera! G6 is great! As was advised - keep shooting, this is a trick to get to know your camera! And you could later experiment with convertors and filters, your camera could look like this :
http://ibi2.photofile.​ru/bozo/12852117ZVS.jp​g

You've chosen a great cam, the bee is a great first try, take peek at my macro pics, most are shot using the super macro settingand fill in flash.