Canon PowerShot SX30IS - Tips and Tricks

As someone very new to taking snaps, I thought I would share my experiences, successes and failures.

First off, up to May 2011 I had only used fully automatic point and shoot cameras. As someone who designs websites in my free time, I often look for free stock photos and somewhat inspired by the awesome talent of many amateurs who share their work on sites like flickr, I decided to up things a notch and look towards experimenting a little, myself, with digital photography.

I wanted to purchase a camera with some of the flexibility offered through manual settings but also the convenience of a point and shoot cameras. Naturally budget was also an issue so to large degree the cost of lenses associated with purchasing a DSLR meant I had to look towards the compact cameras.

In the end I purchased the Canon SX30IS. To put it simply, I was lured by the amazing zoom lens, a whopping X35 or 840mm.

Based on my first 200 snaps, here are some of things I have found.

1) GO MANUAL
The pre-sets are convenient, but I have seen much better results using the manual setting.
The main reason, I think, is that this camera produces a lot of noise with ISO settings above 200, so if you are using manual settings, you are able to keep the ISO down and compensate for light using aperture and shutter speed.

2)UNDER EXPOSE
If you use the little expose meter to determine your settings, under expose by about -2/3. The colours just look much better.


Old Transvaal by caraewilton, on Flickr

The above photo was exposed correctly according to the little meter but to my way of thinking, it just looks a little washed out.

I hope others will be able to contribute to this thread and provide their own experiences.

3) TRY VIVID COLOUR
There is a little setting called "my colour" where you can set the colour of your shots to vivid colour. It makes your photo's just stand out a little more.


Vivid Colour by caraewilton, on Flickr
The above photo is not the best snap, but the vivid colour setting really helped capture the colours of the scene a lot better.

4) NIGHT TIME SHOTS

If you have a tripod, you can have a lot of fun taking pictures at night.


Ghost Rider by caraewilton, on Flickr

The trick is, switch over to TV mode. Make sure your ISO is set to 80 or 100, then play with the shutter speed. For the above picture, I set the White balance to pre-set-flash, although auto also works well enough.

I also set the "my colors" to neutral which minimised the noise a bit.

You need a tripod because the shutter will be open for a while and nobody can hold a camera still for that long!

i'm glad i found this site. i got my PowerShot on 4/29, and I'm still learning my way around the camera. I know a lot of sites are dedicated to P&S cameras, or DSLRs but there is hardly anything on the so-called "bridge" or "megazoom" cameras.

Hi. I have started a blog for Point & Shoot Camera users called the The Compact Camera. The blog is aimed specifically at Point and Shoot users and hopes to offer a selection of tips and tricks just for the Point and Shoot user.