Understanding my camera fully

[bushiee]

Hi,
I have a Minolta Dimage Z2.
Im looking for someone to guide me as to the best possible setup for taking pictures of my sons when doing freestyle moves on their BMX's.

I think I have the basic settings so that the pictures are not blurred when they jump out of a halfpipe or spin 360 in the air. But what I need to know is what settings to use when the clouds come over and the sky goes grey and dull or when theyre at an indoor bmx park with flurescent lighting.

The ISO settings range from
Auto, 50,100,200 & 400

The Aperture settings range from
2.8,F3.2,F3.5,F4.0,F4.5,F5.0,F5.6,F6.3,F7.1 & F8.8

And the shutter speeds range from T,15",13",10",8",6",5",4",3"2,2"5,2",1"6,1"3,1",0"8,0"6,0"5,0"4,1/3,1/4,1/5,
1/6,1/8,1/10,1/13,1/15,1/20,1/25,1/30,1/40,1/50,1/60,1/80,1/100,1/125,
1/160,1/200,1/250,1/320,1/400,1/500,1/640,1/800 & 1/1000

So what Im looking for is help on what settings to use so I get a decent picture of an action (fast moving) shot on different types of day time eg Bright/sunny - Dull/cloudy - Indoors

Thank you
Bushiee

[IrishBill]

Hi,
I'm a complete newbie here so take my advice with a fairly substantial pinch of salt! Your camera has a sport mode. Take a few test shots in different lighting conditions and take notes of the exif data if you have software that shows it. Then you can tweak those settings in manual, shutter or arperture priority modes. Thats what I did anyway. Although admittedly, I still have'nt got it sussed yet! A few of the more experienced members here can probably give you better advice than that though.:)

[bushiee]

All these pros and no one can give me a little information on set up ???????

[copycat]

All these pros and no one can give me a little information on set up ???????


The problem is not that folk won't give you any setup info, it's that the question is almost impossible to answer without the hundreds of little bits of info we use to setup every shot, bits of info we don't even think about most of the time cos it's become second nature.

Like, where are the clouds will the come into play in the shot, which way the lights from, shadows, what's in the back ground, is the subject moving, if it is which way? towards the light or away or obliquely, how much light is there? and so on.

Bill's advice is very good and will give you a starting point to work from, other than that just practice, practice and practice more.

[Stemmy]

Sorry its late.

OK - here is how to think of it.

A bucket and a tap. You have to fill the bucket with water. A full bucket of water corresponds to a correct exposure.

You either fill the bucket slowly with a small jet of water - or fill the bucket fast with a large jet of water. The size of the jet is your aperture and the time the tap is on is your shutter speed.

For a fast moving object you will need to fill that bucket very fast indeed to avoid blurring. So select a fast shutter speed, as the shutter speed is fast you will have to let a lot of light in during that period so select a wide aperture (The smaller the number the wider the aperture). As long as you balance the aperture and shutter speed so the same amount of light hits the sensor (IE the bucket is filled to the same level) then your shots will be correctly exposed.

To deal with ISO - this changes the size of the bucket - low ISO (100) is a big bucket therefore more water to fill - High ISO smaller bucket.

I hope this makes some kind of sense. I always thought this analogy was the best way to remember it all.

[bushiee]

Sorry to Copycat I didn't want to come across sounding all inpatient, I realise theres a million and one things to take into account.
All I was looking for was something in the simplest terms (most understandable)
So Sorry for that Copycat and thanx for the reply.


Thank you Stemmy,

That's made it clearer and put in the most understandable way I have seen so far.
I have read so many pages on this kind of thing and you start to get the idea but the way you have explained it is spot on.

Thank you very much.