Hey Siren (and all others) do you remember when I asked if I could pick your brain about photograph? Well if you have the time could you give me some advice and idiot proof settings? I'm not much of a photographer and I really don't have too much of a background in it or patients for it. I know a lot of it is I need to read the manual better and I just need to take my camera out and learn to use the damn thing.

That being said I'm not interested in taking photos of anything, but using it for stop motion projects at home. Since stop motion is just animating frame by frame a lot of the things you do for photography will be able to help me out. The problem I'm running into is blurry soft focus images. Even when using a tripod I can't seem to get a clear sharp image. I play a lot with the features like shutter speed and aperture but still I don't really know what those things are doing. I'm using a decent camera .. not great like Mark 3 .. but an okay camera. It's the Canon Power Shot S5 IS.

Canon Power Shot S5 IS

Also another problem that I'm running into is lighting in the studio. I know I'm totally DIY my lighting and really need to invest in good lightning materials so any recommendations would be much appreciated. I know nothing about lightning and I really like the way you light your subjects.

So if you have sometime (and everyone else) I could really use some help in getting a decent foundation for photograph.

PS. I'm fairly comfortable in working with After Effects/Final Cut and will likely do some colour corrections through those programs instead of Photoshop.

The aperture of the lens is how big the lens opens allowing light to come in...the depth of field The larger the opening, the more light it will allow to filter in. The aperture is called the F-stop. (The smaller the F-Stop number, the larger the opening, the larger the F-Stop, the smaller the opening) For example....F8 is smaller compared to F5.6, etc...

If you are doing anything involving small objects, you will want the shutter speed to be slow to get rid of the blurred image. This will use the smallest aperture that you have available on your camera. Or is you are doing it in a dimly lit area with no proper light. One of my lenses...I believe it is the 18-55mm lens has a option on it for a "Vibration Reduction". If you have this option on your lens...turn it on. It will help to cut down on the vibrations...well that's if you choose not to use a tripod. However if you do have a VR option and choose to use it, be careful, because it can cause color spots where the light hits the lens.

As far as lighting options to recommend....I use natural light. I tend to take pictures in the early morning, late afternoon and early evening when the sun is close to setting. I found those times of day are perfect for natural light. So I don't want to recommend anything to you regarding that, because I don't use anything else...sorry. I would recommend that you buy a bigger camera flash lens if you plan on doing this again. (It attaches to the top of your camera) They are a bit expensive though if you want a nice one.

For settings....try to follow what I outlined above and definitely use your manual as reference. Your manual should have the basic settings for the ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. If you look it up online on various websites, you'll see everyone recommends something different which I was I always mess around with my own camera and figure out the settings from there.

Oh! If you have a remote sensor to use with your camera....USE IT!!! Even though you are using a tripod, it still picks up your finger pressing down on the button to start the picture which can cause a blurred image depending on your settings. I don't know where I would be without my remote sensor!!! If you need to know anything else, just ask

Thanks Siren .. this certainly gives me a good starting point. Since I'm using a program to shoot stop motion I am using a remote for that, and I've also picked up a few sandbags to stablize the tripod. Unfortunately I don't have the luxury of using natural light. When it comes to Stop Motion everything must be kept in a controlled environment include (and especially) lighting. If I used natural lighting how the set would look at 3pm would be totally different by 10pm. I'll keep looking and try to figure out the best/cheapest thing for myself.