Question on Canon A95

This camera has a "SCN" (scene) setting allowing automatic compensation for
a few different conditions, such as "snow", "night" (etc.).

One of these, "Indoor", is said to "prevent camera shake", which, seeming to
be a nice feature, one would think could be used in all modes, if desired.
(Damn, I need to go buy more commas!)

Anyhow, is this "feature" more likely to be a faster shutter or something,
rather than anything approaching actual motion compensation, a feature which
I'd think would be prominently touted if included.

--
dvus

Bill wrote:
dvus wrote:

This camera has a "SCN" (scene) setting allowing automatic
compensation for a few different conditions, such as "snow", "night"
(etc.).

One of these, "Indoor", is said to "prevent camera shake", which,
seeming to be a nice feature, one would think could be used in all
modes, if desired. (Damn, I need to go buy more commas!)

Anyhow, is this "feature" more likely to be a faster shutter or
something, rather than anything approaching actual motion
compensation, a feature which I'd think would be prominently touted
if included.

It doesn't use IS if that's what you mean.

The indoor scene setting probably just uses the largest available
aperture and turns on the flash. This will effectively eliminate
camera shake. The scene settings will also adjust the white balance,
drive mode, image quality settings, etc. to specific settings. Some
of them can be changed manually.

You have to remember that camera companies expect a lot of newbies to
be using these digicams, so they keep the manual simple for them.
Experienced users already know how to use the basic camera settings,
so they don't need the manual to explain it to them.

So, it's just a combination of settings that cause the exposure to be as
short as possible, thus minimizing the effect of any camera shake?

dvus

Bill wrote:
dvus wrote:

The indoor scene setting probably just uses the largest available
aperture and turns on the flash. This will effectively eliminate
camera shake. The scene settings will also adjust the white balance,
drive mode, image quality settings, etc. to specific settings. Some
of them can be changed manually.

So, it's just a combination of settings that cause the exposure to
be as short as possible, thus minimizing the effect of any camera
shake?

Yes. My A75 has the same scene modes and does the same thing.

As I said before, an experienced user will already know how to adjust
the camera settings to avoid camera shake. But a newbie will find the
scene modes handy so they don't have to know much about the camera
settings and still get decent photos.

I've played with all of the automatic modes on my A75 to see what they
do and how they perform. I found that 99% of the time the camera does
an excellent job with the settings and it results in great photos.

Have at it.

Thanks, I will.

dvus

"dvus" wrote in message
...
Bill wrote:
dvus wrote:

The indoor scene setting probably just uses the largest available
aperture and turns on the flash. This will effectively eliminate
camera shake. The scene settings will also adjust the white balance,
drive mode, image quality settings, etc. to specific settings. Some
of them can be changed manually.

So, it's just a combination of settings that cause the exposure to
be as short as possible, thus minimizing the effect of any camera
shake?

Yes. My A75 has the same scene modes and does the same thing.

As I said before, an experienced user will already know how to adjust
the camera settings to avoid camera shake. But a newbie will find the
scene modes handy so they don't have to know much about the camera
settings and still get decent photos.

I've played with all of the automatic modes on my A75 to see what they
do and how they perform. I found that 99% of the time the camera does
an excellent job with the settings and it results in great photos.

Have at it.

Thanks, I will.

dvus

Even for a more experienced user, these modes provide a much faster and more
convenient way to set the camera. The snow scene seems to work particularly
well.
I've been caught a couple of times with the wrong setting because I forgot
to restore a setting. The camera remembers some but not all settings between
sessions, so it pays to really look at the screen when first turning on
(assumimg you have microscopic eyesight and can remember what the icons
mean).
Dave Cohen

Dave Cohen wrote:
"dvus" wrote in message
...
Bill wrote:
dvus wrote:

The indoor scene setting probably just uses the largest available
aperture and turns on the flash. This will effectively eliminate
camera shake. The scene settings will also adjust the white
balance, drive mode, image quality settings, etc. to specific
settings. Some of them can be changed manually.

So, it's just a combination of settings that cause the exposure to
be as short as possible, thus minimizing the effect of any camera
shake?

Yes. My A75 has the same scene modes and does the same thing.

As I said before, an experienced user will already know how to
adjust the camera settings to avoid camera shake. But a newbie will
find the scene modes handy so they don't have to know much about
the camera settings and still get decent photos.

I've played with all of the automatic modes on my A75 to see what
they do and how they perform. I found that 99% of the time the
camera does an excellent job with the settings and it results in
great photos. Have at it.

Thanks, I will.

dvus

Even for a more experienced user, these modes provide a much faster
and more convenient way to set the camera. The snow scene seems to
work particularly well.
I've been caught a couple of times with the wrong setting because I
forgot to restore a setting. The camera remembers some but not all
settings between sessions, so it pays to really look at the screen
when first turning on (assumimg you have microscopic eyesight and can
remember what the icons mean).
Dave Cohen

Yeah, the icons are a bit cryptic, especially for my older eyes. I guess
I'll probably get used to where each is sooner or later and go more by feel.
The easiest one to distinguish is the movie mode icon, but I must say it
isn't of much use since the results are pretty bad. I'm not sure why it was
included except perhaps for people comparison shopping with other cameras.

One thing I'm having trouble with is using the manual focus. I can't seem to
get it to go past a certain point when shooting things close-up, even though
the displayed scale seems to indicate it could focus closer than it actually
will. (Is that at all clear?) I just can't seem to get good close-up photos
with the stock lens, perhaps I'm expecting too much without buying an
additional lens.

--
dvus

dvus wrote:

One thing I'm having trouble with is using the manual focus. I can't
seem to get it to go past a certain point when shooting things
close-up, even though the displayed scale seems to indicate it could
focus closer than it actually will. (Is that at all clear?) I just
can't seem to get good close-up photos with the stock lens, perhaps
I'm expecting too much without buying an additional lens.

To anyone who might care, I found out that applying any optical zoom will
prevent the manual focus from going below a certain point on the displayed
"gas-guage" scale. Removing the zoom will allow you to manually focus to the
limit of the adjustment.

--
dvus