MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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Just got a panasonic lumix TZ8 - looking forward to trying it out. It has an all singing / dancing idiots mode but it also has a shutter priority mode which sets the aperture according to the shutter speed I set, and an aperture priority mode which sets the shutter speed according to the aperture I set.
What do these mean? What benefits to my photos will I see? And what settings would give me a nice portrait shot with that sort of soft background
any good beginners links gratefully received
To get nice soft out of focus backgrounds, you'll need a wide aperture. In Shutter priority, set as high a shutter speed as possible, which will allow for a wider aperture setting. Or use Aperture Priority, and set as wide (lower number) aperture as you can.
Like this you mean:
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It's called having a 'shallow [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field ]depth of field[/url]', or; the larger aperture means that less elements in front of and behind the point of focus will be in sharp focus.
Also, a faster shutter speed will lessen motion blur, meaning slightly sharper pics. Dependant on speed, of course. For portraits, 1/60th of a second is as slow as you want to go, with a standard lens, as a person's face will move imperceptibly, but enough to mean a slightly blurred pic, at slower shutter speeds.
Always focus on the eyes. The single most important thing I ever learned about portraiture.
Umm...aperature is the hole that the light shines through onto the sensor...obviously a bigger hole will allow more light through and so allow for shorter shutter speeds (which is helpful for photographing sport etc), whereas a smaller hole will allow less light in and require a longer shutter speed. Hope that's helpful and it's based on nothing more than my playing around with my own camera for a while! So please forgive me if I'm all wrong!
Shutter priority means you can set the shutter speed in order to capture high speed motion, or to blur images, and the camera will manipulate the aperture as best it can to allow you to do that.
Aperture priority (probably the most commonly used one) allows you to set your aperture and will sort out the shutter speed for you, allowing you to determine what depth of field you want (how much is in focus front to back). High F numbers = more in focus, but slower shutter speeds so some risk of blur in lower light. Low F numbers = less in focus but faster shutter speeds so less chance of blur. Here you'd want the wide aperture (low F number) to get your soft background and subject in focus, best achieved with a fairly long lens as that really knocks the background out of focus.
Read up on the terms online.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture_priority
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutter_priority
and also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_mode
without having to faff with the camera settings to get a soft back ground, you want the background behind your subject to be as far away as possible ... or at a minimum, twice the distance you are to the subject itself.
once you have that, you can increase the blur ( also known as bokeh ) by setting the aperture of the camera to be as wide as possible ... the aperature is the "f" value ( like f8, f11, f16 ) ... it sounds odd, but THE LOWER THE NUMBER, THE WIDER THE APERTURE ( you did say simple terms ! )
so blurry background = big distance behind the person + low "f" number on settings.
Brilliant - thanks for the idjeets guide!