Help, Trying to get info on shutter speed on digital cameras.

[picco007]

Sorry to ask this newbie question but I wanted to know if shutter speed is the most important thing to look when I want to take pictures of remote control cars going anywhere from 20 to 40 mph? I have a cannon powershot g1 and I can't seem to take clear pictures of these cars. I have tried manual, Tv and most of the other modes and I can't seem to get anything that looks good. Can someone point me in the right direction? I would appreciate it.....I'm looking into getting a new camera ....Cannon A80 4 megapixel and quit using my 3.3 megapixel powershot g1.......I would appreciate any info.

Thanks

[Peter_AUS]

Hi Picco007 (now that is funny),

With the G1, trying using it in TV mode and setting the shutter speed up to around 250 - 500 and let the camera work on the aperture itself. Remember for fast moving cars you need to do panning shots and that is where you will need to have fast shutter speed to capture the car, with a little motion to it. Really for that type of work you need a fast lens to get the image sharp, I have a G3 (considered the better of the G1 - G5 series of cameras) and found the shutter lag from the time I pressed it, to when it took the image really disturbing and peeved me off a bit, considering the camera cost me nearly $1,500Aus. I now shoot with a 10D and am able to use my lenses again, as I wanted to learn and not waste film trying, hence the purpose of the G3 at the time of buying. Thought I would use the G3 for a while, get the settings right in my head from shooting and seeing right away and then was going to move those settings over to film. Now I don't really need to use film most of the time.

Hope that helps. Try a DSLR in the camera store with a 50mm lens and then compare that to your G1 and the A80, you will notice the difference in the shutter lag, on the DSLR it just isn't really there, although camera shake is less forgiving in a way as well.

[picco007]

Hi Picco007 (now that is funny),

With the G1, trying using it in TV mode and setting the shutter speed up to around 250 - 500 and let the camera work on the aperture itself. Remember for fast moving cars you need to do panning shots and that is where you will need to have fast shutter speed to capture the car, with a little motion to it. Really for that type of work you need a fast lens to get the image sharp, I have a G3 (considered the better of the G1 - G5 series of cameras) and found the shutter lag from the time I pressed it, to when it took the image really disturbing and peeved me off a bit, considering the camera cost me nearly $1,500Aus. I now shoot with a 10D and am able to use my lenses again, as I wanted to learn and not waste film trying, hence the purpose of the G3 at the time of buying. Thought I would use the G3 for a while, get the settings right in my head from shooting and seeing right away and then was going to move those settings over to film. Now I don't really need to use film most of the time.


Hope that helps. Try a DSLR in the camera store with a 50mm lens and then compare that to your G1 and the A80, you will notice the difference in the shutter lag, on the DSLR it just isn't really there, although camera shake is less forgiving in a way as well.

Thanks for your reply. I thought that I needed to find a digital camera that had a shutter speed of better than 1/1000. I have seen a few pictures that were done somewhere in the 1/1500 to 1/1700 range to get better pictures of fast moving cars. I will try that this weekend and I will try out the TV mode at that shutter speed. Do you think I need to move to another camera? I would like to stay with this G1 but we'll see what happens. Thanks again for your reply.

Ronnie