High Speed Musical

Think your point and shoot camera has zero chance of capturing movement? Think again! Check your manuals for Continuous Shooting and/or Continuous Shooting AF (Autofocus) Modes. The icon for these modes look like 3 layered boxes. The Continuous Focus AF Mode has an “AF” on top of the boxes.

In order to enable these options, my Canon PowerShot SX100 IS must be set to P (Program), AV (Aperture Priority), TV (Shutterspeed Priority) or M (Manual). I set my camera to P and let it select my aperture, shutterspeed and ISO.

Your camera may be designed differently.

The difference between the two modes is that Continuous Shooting focuses once and then quickly takes up to 3 photographs in a row while Continuous Shooting AF refocuses between shots. You must keep the shutter button depressed in order for the camera to continue shooting. Remember that point and shoot cameras are not as fast as digital SLRs (Canon Rebel series, Nikon D80, Pentax K10D, etc…)

Take this High School Musical 3 performer for example. Although he is dancing and singing his little Wildcats heart out, he hasn’t moved any closer or further away from me. He’s as sharp as he can be considering the long distance between us and my camera’s 6x optical zoom. For these photos I used Continuous Shooting but didn’t hold down the shutter button long enough to grab 3 pics in a row so I only have sets of 2. There are several possibilities why; I usually use SLRs and forget things, I was busy singing “Get Your Head in the Game” even though it’s from the first movie or I was daydreaming about Red Power Ranger.

Switching over to Continuous Shooting AF, I grabbed some photos of the dancers breakin’ it down on the street, yo. The lens refocused before taking each photo that’s why they’re not seamless. I didn’t move the camera at all or crop the photos so you can see everything as it was. I especially like the extra arm in #3. My PJ teacher would kick my tuchas if she saw this.

The Cast Member on the left looks perplexed with me. Maybe he was asking himself why I wasn’t using an SLR, trying to remember which routine he was dancing or thinking about a Power Ranger, too.

Explore your camera’s capabilities. You’ll be amazed how much better your photographs are just by choosing the proper settings.

Written while listening to Chayanne’s CD Vivo.