My G10 Photo Challenge

The Challenge

Stop dreaming about an SLR camera before I know how to properly use my Canon G10 camera. The camera is the best in the point and shoot category and it's quite powerful... but my knowledge of how to use it is very limited. So today I set out on a quest to find out more.
I went to Barnes and Noble and skimmed through Digital Photography Simplified. Alas I'm beginning to understand the idea behind aperture, shutter speed, composition and other important factors in creating awesome pictures.


What I learned

I took my camera and went to take pictures practicing what I just learned specifically the av and tv modes on the camera. Here's what I remeber... the tv mode (shutter speed) is measured in seconds and on my camera ranges from 15" to 1/4000 of a second. The longer the shutter speed is open for the more light it allows in and the more movement it's able to detect. So if you were to shoot a car driving by with a short shutter speed of let's say 1/4000 you'd hopefully be able to get a clear photo of the car frozen in time. If you were to take a picture of the same car but this time on a slow shutter speed of say 2" the car would be whizzing by and everything else would be sharp but it would need to be using a tripod since it can detect the slightest of motion.

Now for the aperture (aka f/stop and found under the av setting) its measured in fractions but on the camera you will only see the number looking like f/3 until f/8 (approx). Now what does that mean? Looks confusing but what it is, is the size of the hole that allows light into the camera. So f/3 is 1/3 size and is a lot larger than 1/8. Basically a smaller f/stop means a larger size (just the way fractions work). Now for the use of it - here comes the fun part - shallow depth of field where the focus is on one part of the picture and the rest is blurred out can be achieved by setting a small f/stop like f/3. And for a large depth of field a larger number should be used like f/4 and the whole picture will come out clear like when shooting landscape.

The rule of 3rds and composition where other chapters in the book that proved very useful.
 
Here the pictures. They were taken on RAW mode (told you that G10 was a good camera :) and so I did basic editing in photoshop RAW sliders and then one or two edited a bit more in photoshop.