The picture on the left was taken with the Finepix s1500 in Auto mode. The picture on the right? Well, I just can't help trying to make wall art from photos.
With all equipment, there is one step so many people simply forget to do. RTFM (better known as Read The 'Friendly' Manual). The Fuji Finepix s8600 comes with a 76 page manual on disk. It goes into all the initial setup options and has basic operation information. Some things i will skip over are covered in detail in the manual. I will mostly talk about what I do and the settings I am playing with to get certain results as I learn them.
The manual is also available here online for download.
http://www.fujifilm.com/support/digital_cameras/manuals/pdf/index/s/finepix_s8600_manual_en.pdf
NOTE !!! The Finepix s8600 (and s1500) has a 'Setup Menu' and a 'Shooting Menu'. One trap for beginners is that the Shooting Menu options change depending on the mode you are in. So for example, you will not find the options to change AF (Auto Focus) methods in certain modes. In other modes you can select how the camera focuses on objects in a frame. Be aware of this when you are looking for an option you are sure you saw once but cannot find now. Chances are you changed to a different 'Mode' on the dial.
The Fuji Finepix does a fairly good job of guessing the settings to use for various scenes and lighting. But with a little tweaking you can switch to Manual mode and fine tune it. When you first get the camera and go through the setup menu one of the options you will come across is called 'Finepix Color'.
You have three options here, Std, Chrome or B. B is black and white. Std is standard colour mode and Chrome is a digital interpretation of what we used to get with 35mm film labelled Kodachrome or Fuji Chrome etc. It just makes all the colours a little brighter and prettier. I usually have my camera set to the Chrome setting - I just like it that way. Sometimes I use standard for photographs in the Australian bush I and forget to change it back. Then the colours look drab.
I always have the IS (Image Stabilisation) turned ON in the setup menu because I do not use a tripod. If you decide to use a tripod the manual suggests turning IS Off.
Something that takes getting used to is the focus options.
As is the case with most Compact Super-Zoom digital cameras, there's no manual focus ring. The camera relies on a computer sensor to focus. In theory this is great and indeed it works well in most situations where the subject is not far away. But over long distances in unusual conditions I would kill for a manual focus. having said that, when I view my photos on a computer, even at full digital zoom I am amazed by how clear some images are.The moon photos are an example. There's no way I really expected the 'auto focus' on a very cheap camera to bring some craters into sharp definition across the several miles from earth to the moon, but on a clear night, it did! It shows how good the computer chips and optics are on budget equipment these days.
I noticed lately that I have my camera set to Auto Focus on 'AREA'. I found that because I am often focusing on something about a kilometre or more away I was getting a great detailed picture of a palm leaf 20 metres away, but the boat I wanted in the picture 1200 metres away was blurred.
Switching AF mode to 'AREA' solved most of that. I had been getting very, very frustrated with the out of focus images until I discovered that little gem. In fact for a while I wondered whether I should have bought a different brand of camera!
Focusing this type of camera is pretty simple. You aim the camera at the object you want to photograph, hold the shutter button half way down, wait for a 'beep' to say the camera thinks it is focussed, hold very steady and gently squeeze without moving the camera body. That's it. I still prefer a manual focus ring, but very few Super-Zoom cameras have one and I'm not paying an extra $500 just to have a manual focus option when the Auto Focus works very well.
Ok, back to the camera itself.
On top of the camera there's a round dial that lets you switch between various modes.
When you first get the camera, the best setting to use to get the feel of it is SR-AUTO. SR stands for Scene Recognition, and that is pretty well what happens.
In this mode the camera tries to determine whether you are shooting inside, outside, in sunny conditions or at night and various other options. So if the lens is very close to an object the camera switches to Macro (very close up) mode. If you try to take a picture of something a mile away it will switch to Landscape more and so on.
The next most useful mode is probably SP (Scene Position). This is somewhere between going to full manual mode and auto mode. You manually select the type of scene you are photographing and the camera sets what it thinks are best. It also varies the Aperture and Shutter Speed accordingly.
There are two SP settings on the camera and it took me a while to work out why.
It turns out you can set SP1 and SP2 for different things. So if you take a lot of Landscapes and often take pictures of Sunsets, you can set SP1 to Landscape and SP2 to Sunset and quickly switch between them. Similarly, if you take a lot of Portraits and quite a few pictures of Babies, you could set SP1 to Portrait mode and SP2 to Baby mode.
Very handy. There are even specific modes in SP for Snow, Sport (action) and for taking photos of Flowers.
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