Camera Questions

[band77one]

So I have a Nikon Coolpix P500. It seems like it takes forever to take the pictures after I hit the button. I'm not sure , is there a way to make it go faster? and sometimes the pics come out blurry when i zoom and sometimes they dont. i want to get better at taking pics but i dont know anyone thats into photography

[Camvill]

a lot of cameras have a feature where the camera has certain points in the frame that it tries to auto focus on before you take the picture. If you hold the button halfway down it will focus and when you hear a beep noise it means it's ready to take the picture.

[Camvill]

you can change this feature and do manual focusing

[band77one]

so pretty much just turn off AF assist?

[Camvill]

yes sir but then you have to focus yourself. Usually a camera focuses on the closest point from the lens so it's always better to focus yourself anyway

[band77one]

thanks i got to test it out already, my baby cousin is over tonight. it definately helps a lot more with her always being a moving target. thanks so much !

[Camvill]

haha i just got done doing a photoshoot with a baby......elmo doll in one hand, camera in the other. It is a lot of work to get just the right shot lol

[redsoxsstink]

I don't know much abt the nikons but with my cannon there are different modes ex: aperture priority, shutter speed priority, and a few others. If you go to shutter priority and raise shutter to 1/125sec that should capture the shot while eliminating camera shake. I would keep auto focus on though just for the sake of being a beginner.

[WildBillyT]

Certain cameras have a faster internal bus and can use fast-write memory cards. If it's a point and shoot camera you may not get too much more performance out of it.

[redsoxsstink]

Certain cameras have a faster internal bus and can use fast-write memory cards. If it's a point and shoot camera you may not get too much more performance out of it.

i googled the camera real quick at a glance it looks like a dslr but it looks to be one with a fixed lens. it did says it utilizes a CMOS censor which is used in dslr's so its up in the air. but like he said point and shoots are often slow so if thats the case you will have to get good at timing things right.

[Camvill]

^_^

[BigRocsFirebird]

do you have a tri-pod, if it takes a while maybe that will help to keep it still for ya.

[bobb1589]

i googled the camera real quick at a glance it looks like a dslr but it looks to be one with a fixed lens. it did says it utilizes a CMOS censor which is used in dslr's so its up in the air. but like he said point and shoots are often slow so if thats the case you will have to get good at timing things right.

My mom actually JUST bought one two days ago. It's a high end point and shoot, costs around $375. I would think it's as close to a dslr as you can get. I'll mess around with my moms to see what I can figure out.

[band77one]

by turning off the autofocus and doing what camvill said has greatly helped it, i only really asked because when trying to take pics of a 2 year old, i cant have a camera taking long to snap a damn picture and it was driving me crazy. pics of cars of nature scenes or something it doesnt matter

[band77one]

but the pictures come out great and it comes with an editing program, very simply easy to use

[sweetbmxrider]

The P500's focus modes include AF, Macro, Infinity and Manual. AF can be centre-spot, user selectable from 99 focus points or camera selectable from 9 points. In Face Priority AF mode, the camera can detect up to 12 human faces and will focus on the one closest to the camera. We found that regardless of AF area mode, auto-focus speed was satisfactory for still subjects, but too slow for fast-moving ones. Manual focusing is also possible, though a bit awkward: you get a rudimentary distance scale on the right-hand side of the screen, and can adjust focus via the Up and Down buttons. The centre of the picture is enlarged to aid you with checking focus, but unfortunately this is achieved by way of interpolation rather than real magnification. The whole process is pretty slow, but can still be a godsend when the auto-focus system starts acting up.

It also has vibration reduction, you have to turn it on and off in the menu. Seems like manual focus is the way to go though.