I need some photography advice.........?

klynn

New member
I am going to be taking pictures with a canon point and shoot at a rodeo coming up soon...It will be indoors in an arena(with bad flourescent lights, I'm sure and it will probably get dusty) and I don't think that I will be allowed to use a flash. I know that this isn't a very good camera, but how can I get the best pictures? and if they do turn out really noisy, any tips on fixing in photoshop? Thanks!
 
Use the "Sports" mode on your P&S camera. It will operate at the fastest speed, or else you'll get a lot of blurred shots. Watch the action and try to position yourself where you can get some interesting angles on the horses and riders. If you aren't tied to a specific seat - move around a bit to get some variety to your shots.

What you may find when you look at the images after the fact is that they may end up an off color from the type of lighting in the arena. Use the "White Balance" correction tools in your S/W editing program to get the colors looking more realistic to what you saw. You may also need to noodle with the focus and sharpening (unsharp mask) for fine tweaks.

Have fun!
 
If your camera has aperture priority you could set a large aperture (small number-like f/2.8 or f/3.5-whatever are the smaller numbers that your camera is capable of) so that you can use a decent shutter speed and ISO to prevent as much camera shake and noise as possible.

Just consider that the larger the aperture, the shallower the depth of field. So your focus will have to be spot on or very little will be in focus. But if you have the shutter speed too slow, all the action will be blurred. A little motion blur can look great in a photo like that because it is more dynamic than a frozen action shot. But you don't want it so blurred that you can't tell what the subject of the photo is.

Basically, you want to find the best ballance between shutter speed, aperture and ISO that will allow for the clearest, and sharpest photos possible. You might try to practice shooting at the arena before hand. Snap off shots to see how it works.

If you don't have aperture priority, you have to completely depend on the camera to choose the settings for you using the scene modes to tell the camera what you want the image to look like. For instance, if you want to freeze the action, then use the action mode. If you want to blur the background for more of a portrait look, then use portrait mode. If you want to get a more dynamic action shot, you could try the landscape mode. It will have a wide depth of field but the shutter speed may be just slow enough that you can pan (move the camera to follow the action) to get that dynamic blurred action shot.

Read your manual to get a better idea of the modes on your camera.
 
If your camera has aperture priority you could set a large aperture (small number-like f/2.8 or f/3.5-whatever are the smaller numbers that your camera is capable of) so that you can use a decent shutter speed and ISO to prevent as much camera shake and noise as possible.

Just consider that the larger the aperture, the shallower the depth of field. So your focus will have to be spot on or very little will be in focus. But if you have the shutter speed too slow, all the action will be blurred. A little motion blur can look great in a photo like that because it is more dynamic than a frozen action shot. But you don't want it so blurred that you can't tell what the subject of the photo is.

Basically, you want to find the best ballance between shutter speed, aperture and ISO that will allow for the clearest, and sharpest photos possible. You might try to practice shooting at the arena before hand. Snap off shots to see how it works.

If you don't have aperture priority, you have to completely depend on the camera to choose the settings for you using the scene modes to tell the camera what you want the image to look like. For instance, if you want to freeze the action, then use the action mode. If you want to blur the background for more of a portrait look, then use portrait mode. If you want to get a more dynamic action shot, you could try the landscape mode. It will have a wide depth of field but the shutter speed may be just slow enough that you can pan (move the camera to follow the action) to get that dynamic blurred action shot.

Read your manual to get a better idea of the modes on your camera.
 
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