Okay, so I am an amateur when it comes to photography, but it is a huge interest for me. My problem is that when I zoom in or use it too much I get poor quality shots with noise and blur. And, in dim light settings I am getting noise too. What am I doing wrong? I have the Canon Power Shot S3 IS. Any suggestions would be helpful.

You using Automatic or Manual settings?

Digital zoom sucks a big time. Use just optical zoom!
Or walk to the subject (if possible).

Automatic, haven't figured out the manual settings "totally" yet.

It's kind of hard to walk up to a bird or certain animal to take it's picture, so I need the zoom to accomplish that.

there's the problem just kidding.....

try learning some manual basics, like changing the ISO

Image stabilization on?

The digital zoom shouldn't give you THAT much noise...mine doesn't...but then, I don't have a Canon so I don't know how those shoot. I know in some lesser-megapixel models one would have that problem...but yours is 6MP, correct?

Dim light settings...do like Wes suggests...learn to change the shutter speed, ISO settings, etc. It may help...(and you may learn a thing or 2 about the camera).



Edit: Just found this...from an early review...

As with most small sensor cameras, noise levels of the Canon Powershot S3 IS will be higher than those seen with DSLRs of the same pixel count, but even so, if it follows the trend of similar cameras, ISO 400 will be pretty good and ISO 800 should be usable.

And this:

Its 6.0-megapixel sensor runs the sensitivity up to an ISO 800 equivalent that's not too noisy to make 4x6 prints; yet it retains excellent detail even in far shots taken with the digital zoom.

And this:

Picture Quality is not the best, esp in case of Shooting at Night. Its ISO 400 & ISO 800 modes are QUITE NOISY.

If that helps...if not...oh well.

Ohh, very cool. I will try that. Where did you find that, I have looked online but couldn't find anything. It sucks arse that a $400 camera gives noise like that, ugh!

I did a Google for "Canon PowerShot S3 IS noise".



The last snippet was from a review on Amazon.

Post an example shot, we will be able to understand what kind of noise you are refering to...

Here ya go..

Just to compare...not a zoom picture...

Like they said don't use digital zoom, also, you mentioned blur when you used zoom. I'm not sure what zoom the camera has (6x ?) but the farther you are zoomed out the more your hand moving will contribute to a blurred image.

*edit* just saw the pic you posted. looks like that blur was probably caused by camera shake.

Oh, ok, that makes sense. Thanks.

If you have a viewfinder on your camera, and don't already, use it! This will help eliminate a lot of camera shake. Also, double check and make sure Image Stabilization is on in your camera.

That also looks like digital zoom has been used with that picture.
Digital zoom does the same thing as upsizing the picture in PhotoShop will. The image will lose quality and look awful. I just turn digital zoom off in my camera.