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Old September 2nd 06, 04:07 AM posted to rec.photo.digital
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Default many questions: choosing new compact, fixing low light blur, learning manual controls, photoshop, etc..

howdy, i'm considering buying a new camera, i currently own a canon
sd450 and i like it a lot but would like to get a camera with more
manual controls. i have no experience with manual controls besides the
very limited ones on my canon but would love to learn and practice
using them on a pocket sized compact. i carry my camera everywhere and
have gotten a lot of neat shots because of that so i don't want
anything even remotely bulky. i like to shoot panorama's so any
increase in optical zoom or megapixels is welcome, the biggest panorama
i've made so far is around 50 megapixels which is overkill for printing
but i just like being able to zoom in on my panorama's while retaining
as much detail as possible.. the rest of the time i just use my camera
for taking pictures on trips or of friends/family, standard fare. i'd
like to start using my camera to take pictures of action though,
specifically skiing.

my biggest problem with my camera is with low light shots. in low
light, say indoors, its hard to take a picture without flash at a low
iso without getting blur from camera movement because of the slow
shutter speed (if thats what its called, the loooong delay between when
you click and when the picture gets taken when at a low iso in low
light). if i increase the iso the image becomes visibly grainy at 100
iso and at 200 iso its just ruins the picture for me, forget about
400... so i just end up taking 3-4 pictures and usually one of them is
sharp enough. beats taking one grainy picture. i try to brace my elbows
on something but thats usually not possible. the only other alternative
is using flash and i hate flash, nothing ever looks remotely the same
as it does with your own eyes and i often end up with a super bright
foreground and a pitch black background which is useless to me. so what
would be better at solving my problem, getting a camera with image
stabilization (ie canon is700) or getting a camera with cleaner and
higher iso's (ie fuji f30)?

my next problem is subject movement, like i said before i want to start
taking action shots.. its not something i've ever really tooled with
but i figure it shouldn't be a problem outdoors but indoors in less
than perfect light, if i take a picture of someone and they're even
just moving their arm or something, it blurs, even at iso400.. the only
way to get the picture without them blurring is with flash which again,
i despise. it would be nice to get a picture of my mother rocking her
grandson without me having to say 'stop rocking' so that nothing blurs.
what can i do to solve this?? and i read a lot about people improving
their pictures with photoshop, sharpening, fixing colours, reducing
noise, etc.. are there any books or online guides for this? maybe
something like a basic guide that explains the most useful and commonly
used things you can do to in photoshop to improve your pictures..? and
if i end up with a camera with full or near full manual controls, whats
a good photography book that can help me to take better pictures and
also help me learn to properly use the manual controls thats not too
overwhelming?

and finally what camera would you guys reccomend? the canon is700 looks
good because of its image stabilization, 4x zoom and extra megapixel
(good for panoramas).. but it doesn't have anymore manual controls (not
good for learning anything new) than i currently have.. the fuji f30
seems to be well regarded, and has nearly full manual control (good for
learning) and apparently has the best high iso performance (good for my
low light blurriness problem).. i know it has no optical viewfinder but
i -never- use mine (i've taken dozens of comparison shots looking
through the viewfinder and looking through the lcd in my standard
position with the camera 5 inches from my nose and have not found there
to be -any- difference in blurriness, plus its far easier to look at an
lcd and you actually see everything you're taking a picture unlike the
viewfinder which cuts off about 10% of the border). however looking at
the reviews on this site, the colour in the pictures taken with the f30
don't look that great compared to those taken with the canon who's
colours are much more lush (scroll down to the bottle).

http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/fu...ew/index.shtml
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/ca..._sd700-review/

compare with the sony dslr and its obvious the f30 is the odd man out..

http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/so...ew/index.shtml

help!