NikonPoint

Hi there,

I use my cp4300 mostly for taking pictures at parties. I have experienced difficulties with the AutoFocus (LED blinking fast) who often did not get the right focus in fast-changing light conditions. So oft pictures were blurred.

I think AF also needs longer till the camera is triggered, right? Since I don't have much time when I take pictures of peolple movin around, I need the fastest settings available! Now I switched to Manual Focus but still some pictures are blurred.

The next problem is the noise in the pictures: I always set the sensibility to ISO 400, because this is the ISO I expect the best colours from, when photographing in low light. I attach great importance to the backround of an image, so to see at least blurred colours in the backround, this is what i mostly use a shutter of 1/4 .

Please see my pics at <a href="http://dominik.node.at/public/Melkerkel ... oarder/</a> for some examples..

Can anybody help me with the correct settings of my cp4300 to get perfect results in the future?

Best regards and thanks for all tips,

Dominik

Welcome to this Forum.

At the beginning, I also had trouble with Partypictures. I don't know about the possibilities of the 4300 (I myself own the 4500). Slow Autofocus is a problem we can't solve ourselves... This is something Nikon should defnitly work on.

About the other things I can only give you the following tips, which worked for me on the last Party.

Set ISO to Auto or manually to 100 or 200. I wouldn't recommend the usage of an higher ISO-level because of the noise you will get in your pictures.

Set the camera into Shutter-Priority and set a shutterspeed NOT slower than 1/125s (of course you have to use the flash with this setting). When using flash, some members of this Forum suggested the setting of an Exposure Compensation of +1. I will try this on my next Party (Monday I hope). The fast shutter speed will prevent blurred pictures. It worked very well for me. Colours were ok, nothing blurred. Don't use the scene-mode Party/Indoors. The colours turned out to be very bad.

And then go around shooting as much as you can, maybe testing different settings. A party is probably one of the most difficult enviorments for a digicam, because of the bad lighting and the moving subjects.

I hope I could help. Go on to party, you have to do some testing

Greetings, Kyb

Hi Kyb,

thanks for your tips! Well, I think I will use manual focus anyway in the future.

If you use shutter speeds at 1/125, don't you get these pictures where everything that has been enlighted by flash is okay, but you see nothing of the background at all!?

Thanks anyway, I'll test your recommendet settings on my next party!

Best regards,

Nick