My first attempts with my S3 IS

[perry]

My new S3 IS is an upgrade from my Canon S100 that is now about 6.5 years old.. It is a true point-n-shoot -- no sorts of options on it aside from like +1/-1 exposure length or something. So, all these settings on the S3 are pretty new to me. After taking 150+ pictures, I've realized I have no clue what I'm doing but I'm having fun :lol: Lots to learn!

So, here is the best of the batch. I used that super-cheap light tent idea that letterk posted, except I'm even cheaper -- I have a 20w "accent lamp" that lives in a corner of my closet because it's not good for much else than taking up space. Came out better than my attempts at using the flash though. My experiments are teaching me the importance of proper lighting though. I think I ended up with f/4.0 and 1/4sec exposure and used Tungsten white balance (exif data just says manual). I just cropped and resized the image, unsharp mask did make it look better though.

So, he's what I've come up with. Forgive me if the subject isn't quite as impressive as Scott's (sphughes) :wink:

http://i7.tinypic.com/5zqdcgh.jpg

[Jim]

Very nice job! Sweet razor to boot.:thumbup1:

[DoubleE]

Very nice Perry! To bounce a little more light back into your subject from the front, try a white piece of cardboard or foamcore. I have a couple of small pivoting mirrors that I use as well that work great to highlight a specific part of the subject. They're more reflective than the cardboard but create greater highlights as well.

Another good option is to wad up a piece of aluminum foil, then straighten it back out. Wrap your cardboard with the aluminum foil and it will be a nice reflector as well. Little to no cost!!

Great job.

[perry]

Ah, see what you mean about the light from the front. Ought to give me something to play with tomorrow! Of course, something more than my little accent lights would help as well.

I think this picture also shows me the need for front lighting.. cropped and resized.

http://i1.tinypic.com/4mwx9jk.jpg

I'll venture outside this weekend and play some more. If the weather's nice, probably make a trip to Indy Motor Speedway and see what I can do trying to take pictures of cars going 225mph!

[DoubleE]

I'll venture outside this weekend and play some more. If the weather's nice, probably make a trip to Indy Motor Speedway and see what I can do trying to take pictures of cars going 225mph!

Try choosing a slow shutter speed and panning with the cars as they go by. Prett cool effect but it does take some practice.

Let us see what you come up with!

[sphughes]

Very nice Perry......Welcome the the S3 world. I find myself taking baby steps as I learn (or try to). Here is a site that is new last month that is a good resource for me and a pretty good group of people is starting to join it.

http://www.s3users.com

If you learn anything cool, let me know.

-Scott

[perry]

Try choosing a slow shutter speed and panning with the cars as they go by. Prett cool effect but it does take some practice.

Are we talking like a second, quarter second, tenth of a second? I don't have a tripod so I imagine this will be even more difficult, but I'll see what I come up with. Hoping to use the 12x zoom and get a nice picture of AJ Foyt yelling at someone in the pits :wink:

Since this thing is so new to me, I'll probably just keep it in auto most of the time and hope for the best.

[perry]

The pictures of cars moving 225mph pretty much don't exist, even though I took 233 pictures today. I deleted all the pictures that just had empty track and was down to 193 :lol: I think there was precisely 0 pictures that actually had a car in focus at full speed. I really couldn't get a head-on angle or a decent place to try to track the cars -- I tried to use movie mode to track a car and failed miserably. Quite tough.

I think this one is probably one of my better attempts. 1/640 and f/4.0, auto white balance. Still quite blurry. When I sped up the shutter too much (1/2000), the pictures were very dark. Too slow and I'd get blur. Unfortunately, due to the timing required to get a picture of a car going 225mph as it passes in front of you, most of my experiments with shutter speed and f values are just empty track.
http://i6.tinypic.com/6gxorxv.jpg

This one was on pit road.. pity about the netting
http://i3.tinypic.com/6cdk58g.jpg

These guys were going more my speed:
http://i5.tinypic.com/639oe8o.jpg

Too bad I couldn't get all the lines straight or this would have made a neat picture:
http://i9.tinypic.com/538b85j.jpg

The detail on this at full size really amazes me.
http://i8.tinypic.com/54nkpyv.jpg

Not bad, but the sky on the right is way too bright. Why couldn't the sun cooperate a bit more with me? I tried some other artsy shots of the pagoda but they didn't come out near as good as I had hoped.
http://i1.tinypic.com/4vr9z6c.jpg

[DoubleE]

Perry:

As you've found, it's really difficult to capture 200+mph vehicles without getting motion blur. A couple of things you can do are:

1 Choose the highest shutter speed you can to stop the action. You may have to dial up your ISO to get to the max however.

2 Pan with the subject. This does require some practice and until you get pretty proficient, the results will be spotty at best. I typically choose a shutter speed of around 1/30th or so and then try to pan your camera keeping the moving object in the center of the frame. If you're using a point and shoot camera, as you are, it may not be able to focus quickly enough on the cars. Try pre-focusing on an object very close to where the car will be when you start your exposure, and lock in your focus (may require manual reading here). Or, you can use manual focus and trip the shutter as the car hits the spot where you've focused on. Keep the camera moving through the entire shot including before you trip the shutter, and even after it's finished. Smooth movement is the key here but can give some very cool results.

3. Practice, practice, practice.

[perry]

My subjects keep getting further away! Venus is right next to the moon tonight, so I tried to take some pictures. I was getting frustrated with just getting a blurry dot of Venus, but I had the NASCAR race on and noticed that's all their camera was showing too, so I didn't feel too bad.

f/8.0, 1/3 sec.
http://i3.tinypic.com/6atbymv.jpg

This one was B&W.. f/8.0, 1/6sec.
http://i16.tinypic.com/62s6x6e.jpg

Turning out to be a versatile little camera :thumbup1: