Photography

[caityrosey]

Here is a recurring problem of mine.

I recently got a digital camera, pretty nice and easy to use, but it takes horrible comp pictures....you know, large room, odd light sources. Most of my pictures turn out way too dark. I can fiddle with the images on the computer, but I would much rather take good pictures to begin with.

Does anyone have recommendations or ideas?

P.S. Same thing happens with the video camera.

 

[Laura]

You need a good high-speed flash that can illuminate the floor from a greater distance than your digital camera's standard flash. If you look at the top dance photographers, they've got quite an impressive set-up in that respect.

 

[caityrosey]

Is there anything the average joe can do to improve with equipment they already have?

 

[Porfirio Landeros]

If your camera has a setting to turn the auto-focus off, this could help, because a lot of the time, the camera takes too long to focus and then the beautiful dance moment passes...

Set the focus for a fixed distance from you, and snap shots when moments happen within that range.

 

[Ithink]

My digital camera is terrible at taking comp pics. It takes forever to focus and dancing being quite a fast paced activity, it's really not ideal for photographing with my camera I tried and the pictures are less than stellar...

 

[ACtenDance]

If your camera has a setting to turn the auto-focus off, this could help, because a lot of the time, the camera takes too long to focus and then the beautiful dance moment passes...

Set the focus for a fixed distance from you, and snap shots when moments happen within that range.

Good suggestion, thanks!

 

[liangjz]

Is there anything the average joe can do to improve with equipment they already have?

There are some simple tricks that you may be able to do to improve the quality of your photos without changing equipment.

Perhaps someone could post some samples of pictures that they're not happy with..

 

[Shooshoo]

I find one of the disadvanatges of digital cameras is the speed of taking the photo. It's not easy to capture the right moment. I also find it more difficult when using flash.

The advantage tough, is that you can delete all the photos and save money on film .

 

[Rosa]

My digital camera is terrible at taking comp pics. It takes forever to focus and dancing being quite a fast paced activity, it's really not ideal for photographing with my camera

I agree. Dance is difficult to photograph, whatever the equipment you use.

Rosa

 

[Joe]

Most digitals seem to have that delay problem. Although I suppose it could be that if you do turn off AF as Porfirio suggests, that the delay would go away. The delay could be due to the thing focusing.

 

[Ellis]

You need to learn the various modes your camera has - sport mode is probably not the best one for dance, but try it. Night mode will make more of the available light but the picture will be a bit more noisy.

If you let me know what model of camera you have, I may be able to advise you what settigns to use

 

[gusmahler]

Assuming your camera is a point and shoot, the flash is grossly underpowered, not being effective past 10 feet or so. So when the camera flashes, it is trying to expose for the flash, but unless you're really close to the subjects, it's not going to be dark enough.

No real way around it if you have a point & shoot, unless it accepts an external flash (like the Canon G series). Unfortunately, most point & shoot cameras don't accept such a flash.