10 Rules for Point and Shoot Cameras

Point and shoot cameras are great. Personally, we have the Canon SD880 and try to carry it as often as possible.  (The SD880 has been discontinued, so if I had to get a new camera I would consider Canon's SD940, SD980, or the SD970 depending on your price range and desired zoom.)   It's great to be able to capture unexpected "kodak moments" or a quick video of our girls doing something incredibly cute. It's also nice to be able to carry a camera in a pocket without really noticing it. However, for this convenience we must sacrifice some in the areas of picture quality and functional flexibility. In order to use a P&S effectively it is helpful to know its limitations and avoid situations where it is weakest. So here are a few pointers to help you get the best out of you P&S.

1. Take your camera with you.  You won't get any good pictures with a camera you don't have with you.  P&S cameras are great because they are easy to bring along, so bring it.
2. Take lots of pictures.  The more pictures you take, the more likely you'll capture some that you love.  Don't be afraid to delete pictures you don't like - it will help you feel the freedom to take tons of pictures.
3. Go Outside. P&S cameras get weaker as conditions get darker, so when you have the choice, take pictures outside. You do not want to be in direct sunlight, but in the shade, on the porch or cloudy days all work well.
4. Don't depend on your flash for good shots.  I talked about how to get the most out of your flash here, but really try to avoid needing the flash as much as possible. It's not powerful enough to do a great job and it's not diffused enough to provide even lighting. You can avoid using the flash by obeying rule #3.
5. Use the Focus Lock.
6. Use the Exposure Compensation function.
7. Use the White Balance setting.
8. Zoom out as it gets darker.  Your camera can capture more light when it's zoomed out.  It's complicated, so you'll have to trust me (or learn about variable aperture lenses.)
9. Don't use the digital zoom.  Some cameras, like mine, allow you to turn of the digital zoom in the menus.  The digital zoom just blows up your pixels which means you aren't getting the best out of your camera.  If you really want to "zoom" this way, you can do it later on the computer, so just get the best image you can while shooting.
10. Don't drop your camera.  They don't work very well after being dropped.  We know.  Twice.

Having said all that, remember that it is possible to get great shots out of a P&S.  Here are some of my favorites that we've captured.

Point and Shoot: White Balance

White Balance is a function on digital cameras that allows you to influence the color balance of your images. The point is to make colors in your picture look like they do in real life. It's called white balance because it can help make your whites look white, but it really affects the hue of all the colors.

The reason White Balance is important is that different light sources (incandescent light bulbs, fluorescent light bulbs, the sun . . .) produce different colors of light. Our eyes are used to these differences and our brains make adjustments so we can still tell something is white when it has orange light on it. The problem is that when we take a picture under one kind of light and then look at it outside of its context, the colors will look wrong.

If you've never adjusted the white balance (WB) on your camera, it is probably set to auto (which may be indicated by AWB.) Many times, your camera will do a fine job guessing at what kind of light is illuminating your scene, but sometimes it needs help. If you notice that the colors in your picture are "off" you can help your camera by telling it what kind of light there is. Press the function (or similar) button on the back of your camera and navigate to the option that has a "WB" or "AWB." Then you can change it to match the light that is available--just remember you will need to change it again when the light changes, or put it back to auto when you are done.

Here are examples of what WB can do. Notice how the colors are different in each image. FYI, the cloudy setting produced the most accurate colors . . . and it was cloudy when I took the picture.

Point and Shoot: Exposure Compensation

To learn about exposure, read this first.

Typically point and shoot cameras do a good job of properly exposing images, but sometimes our pictures are just too dark or too light. Thankfully, there is a simple way to adjust how bright or dark our pictures are as we take them (which is much better than trying to adjust them later on the computer.)

Not every camera is the same (and there are hundreds of different point and shoot models out there,) but every one I've owned or used has an exposure compensation function. The exposure compensation allows you to increase or decrease the exposure making your picture either lighter or darker. Typically you access this option by pressing a "function" button (or something similar) on the back of the camera. Then navigate to a symbol that looks something like +/-0. Once you have highlighted the +/-0 you can usually adjust it to +.3 , +.7 , +1 . . . or -.3 , .-7 , -1 . . . If you take a picture that is too dark, you want to add to the exposure, so adjust this function to +.3 and try again. If it's still too dark, try +.7 and so on. On the other hand, if your picture is too bright, use the numbers with a minus. Here's how it works . . .

This picture is taken at the default settings (+/-0) and is too dark:

I adjusted the exposure compensation to +1 and took this one:
This is a simple was to improve your pictures under challenging lighting conditions.

Point and Shoot: Optimizing Flash

As we all know, the flash on a point and shoot camera is not its strongest feature. Portraits taken at night or indoors aren't going to win any awards since they rely on the flash. But when the flash is your only option, here's a trick to help it look better.

When using your flash zoom in as far as you can then back up to compose your picture. This gives the light from your flash more space to spread out before it hits your subject. Then the light is more even and diffused. Check out the difference:

Point and Shoot: Focus Lock

One of the worst things about point and shoot cameras is pushing the button and then having to wait two or three seconds before the camera takes a picture. You wait for just the right moment when your child opens his present and then snap. But instead of capturing the look of surprise you get the awkwardly contorted returning-to-normal face like this:

This is an unfortunate fact of life which can't be totally avoided, but there is something you can do to minimize the problem.

Part of what causes point and shoot cameras to be slow when taking a picture is focusing. When you push the button, the camera first focuses on your subject before capturing the image. However, if you push the button half way down, the camera will go ahead and focus on your subject. Then when you are ready, you can push the button down the rest of the way (don't let up in between.)

Keep in mind that your camera will be focused at a specific distance. So you don't want to change the distance between your camera and subject once you have the button half way down or you will end up with blurry pictures.

Point and Shoot Week

So far all of our camera-control posts on Photomom101 have been for moms with SLR cameras. But let's face it, lots of moms have point and shoot cameras and they don't want to mess with an SLR (and lots of SLR owners have point and shoot cameras too.) So this week we're going to present a crash course for point and shoot users. Hope you enjoy.