Camera settings help

medicnick83

medicnick83

Paramedic
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Hi guys,

As 'some' of you will know, I got the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W230 a while back.
I generally use the "easy shooting" option or the "auto adjustment" option.

Something that bugs me is that sometimes, the flash will go off once, and sometimes, twice which ruins the photo because once the flash goes, I move or the person who I'm taking the picture of moves.

I want to;

A) find the setting that sets the camera to flash only once (all the time) if possible.

B) find out the best settings to use for when I goto fires.

So if someone has a explanation or site that explains all the features of the camera, that will be cool as I generally don't know that much, I just point and shoot. I use my Kodak, but it's outta commission AGAIN so I think I should get into 'learning' my Sony camera.
 
The DSC W230 handbook says:
"The flash strobes twice. The first flash adjusts the light quantity." (pg 25/129)

Then on page 53/129 it says:
"The flash strobes two or more times before shooting to reduce the red-eye phenomenon when using the flash"
You might want to try changing Red Eye reduction from Auto to (Always) On or Off. Though it also says,
"When Face Detection is not used, the flash does not strobe to reduce the red-eye phenomenon even when Auto is selected.
 
Ok, so if I goto a fire (at night) what would be best settings be?

"Program Auto" I have the following settings

Image Size: 12M (obviously)
Face Detection: Off (currently)
REC Mode: Normal (currently)
EV: +1.0 (currently)
ISO: Auto (currently)
Metering Mode: Multi (currently)
Focus: Center AF (currently)
White Balance: Auto (currently)
Flash Level: + (currently) (Shoot with higher flash intensity)
Red Eye Reduction: OFF (currently) (I don't think I need this ON at a fire)
DRO: DRO Plus (currently) (Recover shadow detail without losing highlights)
Color mode: Normal (currently) (Should this not be in "Vivid" mode?)
SteadyShot: Continuous (currently)

More settings;

AF Illuminator is set onto AUTO
Grid Line is set onto ON
AF Mode is set onto SINGLE
Digital Zoom is set onto PRECISION
Conversion Lens is OFF
Auto Orientation is ON
Auto Review is ON

As you can imagine, I don't know what 90% of the stuff means, but I'd like to learn this stuff, I could spend the time Googling, but maybe you guys can enlighten me.
 
bwana said:
Canon is cRockwell's new "Nikon". If you buy any camera other than a canon s90 you're likely to be labelled an idiot. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

WHAAAATT???

/Note to self: must pick up a Canon s90 when going out for bread and milk this morning.

Well the s90 is a great camera. Could be built using alien technology even. Doesn't really matter though as long as Ken The Oracle Rockwell says it's good then it's good enough for me. :rolleyes:
 
It's probably too late now but here goes:
For those settings above, the only I'd change (if I had the cam :D) would be:
Digital Zoom: to Off
EV back to +-0 and change it if needed
Red eye: Off
Flash level back to 0
Colour mode you can change to Vivid if you want, but you can get the same effect afterwards on PC

For ISO, I'd try manually setting it to a higher ISO. How high depends on how much the quality gets worse, and how happy you are with the results (after resizing the picture, not at a 100% pixel by pixel size). The camera's Auto ISO may be selecting a lower ISO when it's dark because it knows that the quality will be worse at a higher ISO due to noise.

Specially for the fire, I'd try changing Metering Mode to Spot. The camera will then try to take the photo so only the very center of the photo is exposed properly, ignoring the background. So hopefully the camera would try to expose the fire in the center of the frame properly, and ignore anything around the fire.
 
swift412 said:
Specially for the fire, I'd try changing Metering Mode to Spot. The camera will then try to take the photo so only the very center of the photo is exposed properly, ignoring the background. So hopefully the camera would try to expose the fire in the center of the frame properly, and ignore anything around the fire.
Click to expand...

Sometimes I would want the 'area' around the fire (which will be centred) because sometimes there is a object (such as a VWS member) who I want to capture along WITH the fire.
 
gdiza said:
Sometimes I would want the 'area' around the fire (which will be centred) because sometimes there is a object (such as a VWS member) who I want to capture along WITH the fire.
Click to expand...

In that case what you could do is center the camera on the person, press the shutter half way (this locks the exposure on the person), then recompose the photo, then press the shutter completely.

Hopefully this will then expose the photo so you can see the person properly, instead of the camera trying to take the photo so you can see the fire/smoke/background etc properly :)
 
swift412 said:
In that case what you could do is center the camera on the person, press the shutter half way (this locks the exposure on the person), then recompose the photo, then press the shutter completely.

Hopefully this will then expose the photo so you can see the person properly, instead of the camera trying to take the photo so you can see the fire/smoke/background etc properly :)
Click to expand...

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, my Kodak used to do this... ok, will try this, thanks.

Just 'to me' it seems that my Kodak took better pictures, but it should take the same or better pictures.
 
I also struggle to use point and shoots. If the camera doesn't get everything right on Auto, I struggle to get it better by changing settings and fiddling around :( Looking through the manual for that Sony, there's just so many options...
 
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