- #1: Image Quality
- #2: Adjust White Balance (G11 Only)
- #3: Keep Things in Focus with Servo AF Mode
- #4: Focus on Faces
- #5: Use Spot Metering for Portraits
- #6: Adjust the Built-in Flash Power
- #7: Retain Sky Color with Exposure Compensation
- #8: Lock the Exposure with AE Lock
- #9: Use Slow Synchro for Better Backgrounds
- #10: Bracketing Exposures
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#9: Use Slow Synchro for Better Backgrounds
You want objects in the foreground to be properly exposed, but also elements in the background? In low light? This is a common and often difficult shot. Picture a person standing in front of a sunset or a cityscape at night. Most often you'll get either a good exposure of the person and no background detail, or a nice shot of the background and a silhouette (or worse) of the person.
If you can get your subject to hold still, the Slow Synchro feature will do wonders. Press the Menu button and navigate down to the Flash Control menu item. Press the Function/Set button, scroll down to Slow Synchro, and turn it On.
When you shoot, the flash fires briefly to get a better meter reading of the scene. Next, the shutter opens to allow in enough light to expose the background. Finally, the flash fires again to freeze the subject in focus (see Figure 6). If the person moves, you could end up with motion blur caused during the longer-than-normal opening of the shutter, so that rules out toddlers for this feature. Slow Synchro enabled me to retain background detail that would have been pushed to black using the normal flash mode.
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