digi-cam settings

i just got a Sony DSC-S85 camera for christmas, and am eager to finally start taking beamshots with a camera that is not mounted to the top of my monitor

this camera has a lot of features, and i was wondering what the best settings are to take beamshots, and if anyone has any tips or tricks to make them come out better.

by the way...does anybody know if this is a good camera?

***edit*** the stupid link feature isn't working, and the link is apparently too long to just click... if you want to see it, you will have to copy and paste

Edit again
I hate links that screw up my screen resolution, so...link fixed.

-Saaby

More knowledgeable beam shot takers please chime in....didn't someone post a guide?

I have found that I have to go completely manual. Measure camera distance and set focus accordingly and then play around with different aperture/shutter settings until you get something that looks about the same intensity as what you see. This is with taking LED beamshots. Perhaps things are done differently when taking beamshot pictures of bright incandescent lights. When taking some recent LS comparising shots, I ended up using a 1/30 second shutter speed and a aperture setting of 2.5. Obviously the camera has to be resting on a solid surface or on a tripod.

thanks geep, i will be taking pictures of my ls mods for the most part. best to go with manual??? uh-oh!

a guide would be nice...

thanks saaby...i tried at least 10 times to get it right...i guess you just used a different url, pape is slightly different, but still the same thing.

Auto exposure in my experience will make the beam appear to be much brighter then it really is.

I got the same camera for Christmas and it is amazing. I'm still figuring it out, so can't tell you how to do it, but that camera has whatever features you will need. You can go partially or fully manual for focus, aperature and/or shutter speed at the touch of a single button. It also has white balance adjustment.

One great tip I can give you is you are going to want to turn off the flash (just kidding-- you knew that). You also might want to consider that the pictures may look a little darker on the PC than the camera's monitor, at least that's been my experience with mine.

thanks lurker...i like the camera too.

i was really surprised to learn that it can do mpeg movies! long ones too.

Aperature biggest that you can find on the cam, for me, it's 2.8, it's a Canon A40, you lucky, got nice prosumer cam... 4 megapix. Set aperature as you see fit because sometimes got ambient lighting. I set mine for 1 second... sometimes 5. I try to do it in my room, windows closed, curtains drawn... door closed...

I also noticed that the Sony has a setting for the ISO film speed. I think I understand what that is for regular film, but I'm surprised to see it on a digital camera. Anyway, it should have an impact on exposure value so you might want to take it off of "automatic" and lock it in on some particular value (maybe 400) to ensure it doesn't change and mess you up.

You can also tinker with the "white balance" setting if you are not happy with how the color value is captured, or at least take it off of "automatic" for consistency between shots.

But I think I saw that you posted some great beam shots in another thread, so you must have figured it out. Maybe you can post what settings you used.

post what settings i used?! if only i knew!

actually, i think i went to "scn" mode. i remember myself thinking "wow, they have a mode specially designed for beamshots!!"

they probably could have been a bit better, but prior to this digital camera, i had only used disposables and cheap sanyos and others.

Lurker, the reason for the "ISO film speed" settings is so you can choose your own tradeoffs just like in the "real film" world.

In film, the higher-speed films have more grain than the lower speed films (larger silver halide grains are more sensitive to light than small ones ... ), and often give a bit less room in exposure lattitude and less color accuracy.

The same happens in the digital world, just for slightly different reasons.

In digital, the "noise" (grain) of the image increases at higher ISO speed equivalents because one is running higher gain and amplifying it more (yeah, I'm using analog terms, but they are more easily understood). The same with the lattitude being slightly more limited at higher gain. Also, at the "high speed" settings the color accuracy of the sensors is reduced because of the lower light levels reaching them.

It's always a trade off, and some cameras trade better than others.