# My new Little manual Point n Shoot - Canon S100



## jamesyu (Feb 13, 2012)

So I'm very much noob to the photography world.
Wanted your opinions of my shots of my aquarium and would like some advice to improve my pictures.

I got focus down (I think!?) and would like to see some of your expert opinions as well as tips to improve my shooting.

I know there are mix reviews with the S100, but I'm really diggin this new model.

Here's the image information:
Canon PowerShot S100
F-stop - f/5
Exposure Time - 1/25th Sec.
ISO - 800
Focal Length - 5mm
Max Aperture- 2
Resolution - 180 x 180dpi
Dimensions - 3000 x 4000 (didn't do wide screen shot yet)
Bit Depth - 24

Critiques welcome =)

Here's the pictures:


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## Patriot (Dec 22, 2010)

nice pictures. If you want you can try to bump down the iso if you tank light are bright enough. This will give you closer to the actually colors of the tank. The higher iso makes your sensor more sensitive to light giving you more washed out pictures(the first two) with bright light available.


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## jamesyu (Feb 13, 2012)

Patriot100% said:


> nice pictures. If you want you can try to bump down the iso if you tank light are bright enough. This will give you closer to the actually colors of the tank. The higher iso makes your sensor more sensitive to light giving you more washed out pictures(the first two) with bright light available.


Ahh, thanks for the advice, I was playing with the f-aperture as well as the iso to see if I can balance it, I think It needs a bit more work


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## Patriot (Dec 22, 2010)

If you want to the freeze the fishes movement with blur you can try to bump up the shutter speed if possible. If your camera doesn't allow you to do that then you can bump the ISO to get faster speeds. But I'm sure that your camera will let you change the shutter speed. Like you said you just have to play with it.


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## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

S100 is a great little P&S.

To reduce the blown-out highlights, try adjusting your exposure compensation to something like EV -1 or -2. This would improve the first two images, where some of the Hygro leaves are "blown out". Some of the shade detail will be less pronounced, but in most cases this doesn't take away from the image (unless your main object is dark).

Also try to reduce your saturation a bit (I think this is adjustable). In your third picture, the saturation level leads to uniformly green leaves, you are losing some of the texture there.

For shots of moving fish, try to play around with the flash. You might have to hold the camera at a slight angle to the glass so the flash reflection is off the center, ideally out of the image. Although you might be able to crop images to show just your subject without the reflection. Also set your camera to telephoto.

One more recommendation - clean up the glass for close-ups. That Oto belly image is great, but it would be even better without the GSA. roud:


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## jamesyu (Feb 13, 2012)

Wasserpest said:


> S100 is a great little P&S.
> 
> To reduce the blown-out highlights, try adjusting your exposure compensation to something like EV -1 or -2. This would improve the first two images, where some of the Hygro leaves are "blown out". Some of the shade detail will be less pronounced, but in most cases this doesn't take away from the image (unless your main object is dark).
> 
> ...



thanks =) I wanted to actually capture the GSA, since I was playing around with the focus. I'll be cleaning that out next week. They keep coming back, trying to get rid of them, but have no idea how.
I'll begin fiddling with the camera a bit more, I got like a mini tripod coming in so I hope that will help me deal with the image capturing as well. Learning this stuff is pretty overwhelming at first, but once you get the main gist of it, the photography becomes pretty smooth. I'll begin to play with the exposure levels a bit more and also the saturation, though everything was just evened out. I'll be messing with the raw images this coming week with my PS CS5.


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## GraphicGr8s (Apr 4, 2011)

Something doesn't seem right about the numbers you posted. You're at an ISO of 800 with an aperture of f2 and it's only 1/25?

Couple of tips. Try to get your ISO as low as possible. Lower ISO equals lower noise. I generally shoot at 100 outdoors and 400 indoors. Those are my general numbers. Sometimes I go to 400 outside. Just depends. 
Adjust only 1 thing at a time. If your trying to capture a moving object keep a decent shutter speed (1/125 generally works for me with my equipment in many instances) and vary your f/stop.

If you do that then shooting in manual is a breeze. All you do is take a test shot and change ONE thing. Under the same situation your settings should be the same.

Now a question for point and shooters, do the new models still have the shutter lag from when you press the button?


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## jamesyu (Feb 13, 2012)

GraphicGr8s said:


> Something doesn't seem right about the numbers you posted. You're at an ISO of 800 with an aperture of f2 and it's only 1/25?
> 
> Couple of tips. Try to get your ISO as low as possible. Lower ISO equals lower noise. I generally shoot at 100 outdoors and 400 indoors. Those are my general numbers. Sometimes I go to 400 outside. Just depends.
> Adjust only 1 thing at a time. If your trying to capture a moving object keep a decent shutter speed (1/125 generally works for me with my equipment in many instances) and vary your f/stop.
> ...


Thanks for your info, it's very helpful and i've been following that "train of thought" for a while now.

The information is from my embedded photo information. As far as the shutter lag, there's not much of one, at least I don't think so. I'm not a good person to tell you about that though. I barely got into photography myself.


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## GraphicGr8s (Apr 4, 2011)

You're welcome.

This part here:


> Adjust only 1 thing at a time.


 works for everything, not just cameras. I've had pressman with a feeding problem and they go and change the table height, air blast and vacuum and wonder why they can't get paper to feed. The answer to them is the same. One adjustment at a time from your base point. Seen the same thing when I'm teaching PS. Everybody wants to do all the adjustments in one fell swoop. Then they wonder why it looks like crap.


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## Rion (Dec 29, 2006)

On you full tank shot you can achieve a better exposure if you block the direct light coming from the lights above the tank from the camera. The sensor for judging exposure (aperture and shutter speed) is basing it on the entire field of view in most P&S cameras thus can give a skewed exposure from the excess light coming from the tank lights. Though this seems to not be much of an issue for you as your pictures are a little washed out.

You mentioned you were new to cameras so I will give you some insight into the mechanics that make up you exposure setting if you don't already know them which may help with your own trouble shooting of... well, your shooting. The camera exposure is based mostly off 3 settings f-stop, shutter speed, and ISO. 

ISO is the sensitivity of the film or sensor in the camera, higher the ISO the more sensitive the light capturing media is. Higher settings create noise and as such don't allow for large prints or blown up images without the blemish that noise creates. This setting generally stays static for the environment you are shooting dependent upon the available light and the settings you wish to shoot at and subject matter.

Shutter speed is exactly what it sounds like, the speed of the shutter. It is measured in seconds so a shutter speed of 1/125 is 1/125 of a second. You adjust this setting is reference of the object/setting you are shooting. As a general rule of thumb don't shoot lower than 1/60 without a tripod or stable surface to set the camera. Faster speeds let you freeze things in motion like you rasboras if they are in a particular zippy mood. 

Finally is f-stop, which is the measurement of the aperture opening. The number comes from the focal length of the lens divided by the effective aperture diameter. What this setting controls is the "Depth of Field" which is the range of the picture that is in focus, with a larger f-stop meaning a greater DoF. Much of this is also effected by distance from the subject, being further away increasing the DoF and being closer decreasing DoF. Also note that a higher f-stop means a smaller aperture which means less light making it's way to the sensor. 

Exposure settings become a balance of these three things especially in relatively low light situations such as fish tanks (the sun is hard to beat). You may choose to use a higher ISO if large images aren't what you seek and you desire a larger DoF and/or higher shutter speeds. Also note that the correct exposure is based off of a reading of 18% gray, so in pictures with a lot of black or white (light or dark) the correct exposure may be different than what the sensor may think and you would have to adjust accordingly.

Well that concludes my short introductory crash course to exposure mechanics, if you have any questions feel free to ask. If you already know all this stuff or don't have access to manual setting then feel free to ignore me. Happy shooting!


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## GraphicGr8s (Apr 4, 2011)

Simplified it means the shutter speed says how *long* light will hit the sensor. F/stop is how *much* light will hit the sensor.

This isn't a bad link for basics.

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/p...guide-aquarium-photography-work-progress.html


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## jamesyu (Feb 13, 2012)

Rion said:


> On you full tank shot you can achieve a better exposure if you block the direct light coming from the lights above the tank from the camera. The sensor for judging exposure (aperture and shutter speed) is basing it on the entire field of view in most P&S cameras thus can give a skewed exposure from the excess light coming from the tank lights. Though this seems to not be much of an issue for you as your pictures are a little washed out.
> 
> You mentioned you were new to cameras so I will give you some insight into the mechanics that make up you exposure setting if you don't already know them which may help with your own trouble shooting of... well, your shooting. The camera exposure is based mostly off 3 settings f-stop, shutter speed, and ISO.
> 
> ...


Thank you for the information and critique. I thought the pictures came out pretty good, but then again my eyes are untrained. Definitely appreciate the tip that you have provided. I will take that into consideration as I shoot more pictures, and an explanation to this was very helpful.

The ISO stuff I was getting use to, aperture and shutter stop is what was confusing me most. Even though I have gotten some of the hangs of it, I'm going to test out the focusing and see what I can do for myself. I'm going to try to take some time and just take pictures on my aquarium during my free time to see if I can get the images I need. The only thing I don't like about the point at shoot on this is the battery life. 200 images per full charge.

I'll begin making my adjustments based on everyone's description in this thread.. The only thing is that I have a bad habit at being shaky when holding the camera, so i think I can probably get my hands on a miniature desk sized tripod that's a bit more flexible and I can then work something out.

I'll see about improving the shutter speed time as well. I'll start adjusting to 1/125th of a second and see where I can go from there.


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## jamesyu (Feb 13, 2012)

GraphicGr8s said:


> Simplified it means the shutter speed says how *long* light will hit the sensor. F/stop is how *much* light will hit the sensor.
> 
> This isn't a bad link for basics.
> 
> http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/p...guide-aquarium-photography-work-progress.html


Ahh yup, I was reading that and it's what got me to buy the S100 in the first place =)


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## Rion (Dec 29, 2006)

Most of the exposures in pictures you took were good, in particular the oto shots. It was just the FTS shots which can be hard to get a good exposure on in smaller tanks. It seems if you can bump up the shutter speed in lieu of the f-stop (maybe to a 4 or a 2.8?) you should be able to "stop" the fish in motion. I guess it depends on how far away the camera is from the tank. I can also mention that the depth of field from where you focus is going to encompass about 1/3 of it's area in focus in front of where you focus and 2/3 of the area behind. The size of this area depends on the distance from the subject and the f-stop. confusing yes but what it means in short is that you as a rule don't focus on the very front of the subject but partly in. So lets say you were taking a portrait picture you wouldn't focus on the tip of their nose but their eyes or the eye further away from you if the subject is turned. You do this to maximize the depth of field which can come in handy if you are using low aperture settings and your over all depth of field is small.


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## GraphicGr8s (Apr 4, 2011)

Rion said:


> So lets say you were taking a portrait picture you wouldn't focus on the tip of their nose but their eyes or the eye further away from you if the subject is turned. You do this to maximize the depth of field which can come in handy if you are using low aperture settings and your over all depth of field is small.


Strange as it is if the eyes aren't in focus nothing seems to be. The nose could be perfect but still it will seem OOF. If the eyes are sharp, tack sharp, then most people will never notice a shallow DOF and a nose OOF.


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## jamesyu (Feb 13, 2012)

Rion said:


> Most of the exposures in pictures you took were good, in particular the oto shots. It was just the FTS shots which can be hard to get a good exposure on in smaller tanks. It seems if you can bump up the shutter speed in lieu of the f-stop (maybe to a 4 or a 2.8?) you should be able to "stop" the fish in motion. I guess it depends on how far away the camera is from the tank. I can also mention that the depth of field from where you focus is going to encompass about 1/3 of it's area in focus in front of where you focus and 2/3 of the area behind. The size of this area depends on the distance from the subject and the f-stop. confusing yes but what it means in short is that you as a rule don't focus on the very front of the subject but partly in. So lets say you were taking a portrait picture you wouldn't focus on the tip of their nose but their eyes or the eye further away from you if the subject is turned. You do this to maximize the depth of field which can come in handy if you are using low aperture settings and your over all depth of field is small.



Thanks!! I'll take this into consideration the next time I try full on manual.
I'll try out some of the posted guidelines here too -- I'll post up new pictures of my results soon.


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## jamesyu (Feb 13, 2012)

Setting up new camera settings:
F-stop f/2
Exposure Time: 1/125 - 1/120
ISO: 400
Focus Length is 4-5mm

Check out these images and let me know. I believe that they are vast improvement on my shooting technique:

Whitebalance = Tungsten (wrong color)



















Whitebalance = Florescent (correct coloring)


















(This one is my favorite shot)



























Let me know what you think guys.

Here's the Gallery, please check it out -- you can probably get the full sized blown up image from the main link down here:
http://postimage.org/gallery/12s7gyfo/448df446/


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