Help with my Canon Powershot A-80.

[Stewy]

Hey everyone, I'm new on the forum and new to the photography world. I'm 14 years old and I just bought my very first camera which is a Canon Powershot A-80 about 2 months ago. I just have a few questions about it that I'm not sure or that I couldn't find in the guide. Alright, here we go -

1) What mode do I use to shoot an image that is clear with the background blurry?
2) Can I buy zoom for my camera (I think the salesman said I could)?
3) Can I do sequence shots (if so, how)?
4) How can I do longer exposure shots (I think its only on a few seconds right now)?

I think thats it for now, but if I have any other questions I'll post them in here. Thanks in advance. I hope someone can message me right away in this thread.

Cheers.

[drifter136]

I've never used the A80, but i checked the specs and you can do everything you asked about. I'll try to help the best I can:

1) For the clear subject, blurry background you need to have a large apature (small f-stop #). One way of doing this is to set the camera to Aperture Priority (Av). Then select a large aperture, something like 2.8 (for telephoto I think somewhere around 4.8 is the largest you can go). Another way is to put the camera in Portrait auto mode. The camera will automatically select a large aperature

2) I think you can get screw on lens extenders if you get the LA-DC52C lens adaptor. I could be wrong though

3) Your camera can take a sequence shot at about 2.4fps for 5 shots. You'll need to set the camera to continuous shooting and just press and hold the shutter release.

4) For longer exposures, do the same as for the aperture, but this time set the camera to Shutter Priority (Tv). Then select a slower shutter speed.

Hope I have been some help. I'm actually thinking about getting the A60 as a take anywhere camera. How do you like the A80 so far?