a photo after adjusting the settings on my panasonic dmc-fz8

a friend of mine who works at a camera shop told me to make some setting adjustments on my camera to get better photos. here's a result:



not too bad, huh?!

That's beautiful, Andrew. I love the colors.

Any chance you can tell us what adjustments your friend recommended?

Nice! I love the vibrant blues in the flower.

:-) just kidding!

That's beautiful, Andrew. I love the colors.

Any chance you can tell us what adjustments your friend recommended?

Shoot in aperature priority and set the iso to auto. I read online that my camera struggles over 400 iso...it is an older camera and it has a fixed lens.

That's beautiful, Andrew. I love the colors.

Any chance you can tell us what adjustments your friend recommended?

Shoot in aperature priority and set the iso to auto.  I read online that my camera struggles over 400 iso...it is an older camera and it has a fixed lens.

Thanks, Andrew. I have my camera set on Aperture Priority but I believe I have the ISO set at 400. I'll have to give the automatic ISO a try.

That's beautiful, Andrew. I love the colors.

Any chance you can tell us what adjustments your friend recommended?

Shoot in aperature priority and set the iso to auto.  I read online that my camera struggles over 400 iso...it is an older camera and it has a fixed lens.

Thanks, Andrew.  I have my camera set on Aperture Priority but I believe I have the ISO set at 400.  I'll have to give the automatic ISO a try.

I don't really know what iso is or does. I need to grab a book on amazon to read up on it. I plan on doing that tonight.

Here are two books that I picked up on Amazon in April, when I got my new point-and-shoot.  The book on the left is basic and easy to understand.  It's the one I'm going through now.  The one on the right is also easy to understand but is a bit more encompassing.  


David Busch's Point-and-Shoot Compact Field Guide (left) and Better Photo Basics by Jim Miotke


Part of a page from David Busch's book


A page from Jim Miotke's book

I was just going to write (and am) that it all depends on what you're shooting as to whether you want aperture priority, shutter speed priority, "program mode", or manual. At least in general. I don't even know what cameras you both have. He nailed the iso setting though. Generally the "slower" the setting (lower number) the less noise and the higher the more noise.

For action you want a higher ISO and higher shutter speeds to freeze action. But that doesn't mean slow shutter speeds can't be used for action shots. Deliberate blur can be quite valuable. Why would you want aperture priority? A low number fstop  gives a very narrow depth of focus, blurring out things you don't want seen. A large number and small opening increases depth of field making focus less critical and making depth of field quite deep.

Using a low ISO will allow one to selectively change the fstop and shutter speeds to get the desired effect. There have been times that I've used stacked neutral density filters to get the desired combination for the right effect. I think I posted the waterfall pic. That was done with stacked ND filters to reduce the light entering the lense to allow the exposure that I wanted.

I'll link to it again to make it easy to find.

This is one: [Image: sm_Autumn-Falls.jpg]

I remember this day distinctly as it gave me fits to capture exactly what I wanted. The color was not done in processing. The color in the water is the color from the sky near as I can figure. That was an added bonus.
[Image: HoustonBrookFalls_zps50efb3b1.jpg]

This has been seen before in the presentation for the camera club. It can also be seen how I deliberately threw the background out of focus to keep the eye where I wanted it to be.
[Image: 8x11DSC00337cloned_levelsadjustedsharpen...f5b4a9.jpg]

I always enjoy your photos, Brian. Honestly, doing nothing but working in Aperture Priority, instead of automatic has made a big difference so I expect it will only get better.

great photos, Brian.