How to shoot with a point and shot? Sounds strange? Just point and shoot! Well you can do it but if you want really great pictures you should know a thing or two.

How to shoot with a point and shot - camera?

As I own a Canon Ixus 700 ( SD500 ) I will refer to this camera and name my favourite settings. Anyway a lot of the settings are possible on other P&S-cameras as well. I owned a lot of digital cameras within the last years: Nikon Coolpix 950, Olympus E-100RS, Nikon D1, Canon Ixus V2, Nikon D2H, Canon S60, Sony T3 and the Canon Ixus 700. While they all work more or less great in full automatic they all do profit from some intelligent override. Currently I use the Nikon D2H and the Canon Ixus 700 ( SD500 ). With the Nikon it's very simple: You have a lot of settings- you can use the camera in full manual mode and of course use the RAW-format for maximum control over the final image. With the Ixus you can't do that. The camera works only in full automatic mode and you have only a punch of scene programs to choose from like pet&child, nightshot, underwater, ... and many more. The only format you can use is JPEG and therefore you should get white balance right in the field.

The good things first: For some reason that I don't know the Auto-white balance in point and shot cameras is superior to the Auto-WB in D-SLRs. Especially the Canon Ixus line is extremely strong regarding white balance and colours. So you can rely on your camera in this regard. Another nice point especially with the Ixus is that even if you use the CLOUDY-WB as a default setting for all your images you get very nice looking shots. They are warmer but not to yellow. I tried this with the Sony but got a very strong yellow cast while Auto-WB on the Sony was way too cool. Another nice thing of the Ixus is that even with colours set to VIVID the skin tones remain realistic. I have no idea how they do it but it works. Maybe a face recognition like Nikons face focus?

OK - now step by step.

First thing on the Ixus 700 is the shooting mode selector with five positions: playback, automatic mode, M-mode, SCN-mode, camera-mode.

playback - mode is just playback: you can watch your images. That's obvious - right but just in case that you don't like to change to playback - mode every time you check an image and you didn't read the manual. If you push the FUNC. SET - button within 3 seconds after you took the image you can check the image without going into the playback - mode. One slight touch on the trigger and you are ready to take the next image. Cool!

automatic mode: you can't change anything except resolution and JPEG - compression rate. You can turn out the flash but you have to do it every time you turn on the camera because it changes back to automatic flash. You can't change ISO, WB or dial in an exposure compensation. In one word: this mode is simply useless! I only use this mode when I'm indoors and want to take a flash image without changing all the settings in M-mode - otherwise it is pointless especially because the Canon Ixus range has one very special "fault?" I will comment on this point later.

M-mode: This is not a manual-mode because you can't set aperture and shutter speed but it let you do some overrides: It gives you the chance to set an exposure compensation - this is extremely important and the key to high quality images. It let you preset the white balance ( the Auto-WB on the Ixus is perfect but it's still nice to influence WB ). You can set ISO manually and you can choose between vivid colours, neutral colours, black and white, sepia or low sharpening. If you turn the flash off you only have to do this once because if you turn on the camera again the flash is still off! This seems like no big deal but if you every used a camera where you have to turn the flash off before you can take a shot you know how important this point is. This is the mode I use for over 90 percent of my images.

SCN-Mode: You can choose from 9 scene - modes but I found it rather annoying to choose between so much different modes where I never know what the camera will do. But I use them sometimes and the reason is this: I found out that the foliage - mode gives my Velvia like greens that I really like and portrait changes to low contrast and neutral colours. That is the reason why I use these two scene - modes quite often. The only thing I don't like is that I have to turn off the flash again every time I turned the camera off and that it also lost the exposure compensation after power down. Otherwise they are a nice addition and the underwater-WB could be useful if you like to dive with you Ixus. Maybe I will buy a underwater housing and try underwater photography too.

camera-mode: pretty impressive and just limited by the size of the card, slow motion playback is fun but there is one big drawback: the file format! If you take an one minute long video you will end with an over 100 MB large file. Take 2 or 3 videos and your 1GB - card may get out before you reach your hotel to download the card. This is really a problem as longer videos are not possible without a couple of large memory cards in spare or the use of an image tank. Canon should change the video format to something else like MPEG4 or similar.

My favourite Ixus - settings:

M - Mode

exposure compensation: -2/3, why? because it works! I found out that all Ixus cameras ( at least my Ixus V2, the Ixus 30 ( SD200 ) of a friend, and my Ixus 700 ( SD500 ) tend to overexpose. To dial in a -2/3 exposure compensation helps to prevent the white to burn out and another nice thing: helps to keep the shutter speed short! A nearly 1 stop exposure compensation means almost 1/30 instead of 1/15 and this helps in every situation. I found out that in low light situations it can be useful to dial in even -1, -1.3 or even -1.7 stops to get exposure right. Only in very bright situations like a sunlit beach or a white wall I dial in no or maybe even a +1/3 to avoid underexposure. The funny thing is that my Ixus V2 and my Canon S60 worked exactly the same way than my Ixus 700. The exposure meter of the Ixus is extremely reliable because you always know how far off it is. It is very predictable and this is great. Try it - you will be surprised.

white balance: I used CLOUDY as a default on my Ixus V2 all the time but changed to AUTO on my Ixus 700. The auto-WB on a Ixus is simple brilliant but I still think that CLOUDY is an option too especially if you like warm tones. Now I struggle which one to use but the most important thing is that you can't go wrong here: both ways offer stunning results - it's just a matter of taste.

ISO - setting: no question 50ASA. I always use 50ASA. On my Ixus V2 there was no other option because noise starts to appear at 100ASA and 200ASA was pointless. On the Ixus 700 I have no problem to use 100ASA and even 200ASA are an option if you need it. The point is: If you can avoid it by using a small tripod ( like a Manfrotto 709 ) you are better off with 50ASA even if this means a long time exposure.

V or LS that's the question! On my Ixus V2 I always used VIVID colours because I love it! I still love the VIVID colour setting because it really gives you an amazing result and pushes the colours even on dull days. It's just like a built-in Velvia. On my last trip a tried LS ( low sharpening ) for the first time. I have to admit that this might be a way to avoid artefacts but I find the results rather unimpressive. I think it is because the camera not only reduce the in camera sharpening but also reduces the contrast and that combined with the less strong colour saturation can lead to rather flat and unimpressive images. Like D-SLR images they are good for post processing but you have to do some post processing as the are not ready to print or to be displayed on a monitor. I still don't know which setting to use in the future and I would really love to see Canon to give the user the opportunity to set contrast, sharpness and colour saturation independently.

One thing at last: Turn the 9 point AF off. It's annoying that this thing always picks the wrong part of the image. I would love to see Canon go back to the 3 point AF because this really works and was great if you shoot an image of 2 persons. Now you have to take care that you don't focus on the background in-between the 2 persons.

And again the ultimate trick to get perfect images in low light: Funny thing is that I used the Canon S60 without a tripod to take this shot. Exposure time was 1/8s and that´s the reason why the image is not very sharp. But it´s good enough that you can see how small my table top tripod is. It´s extremely small but it´s made of steel and very sturdy. It´s called Manfrotto 709 here in Europe.

I hope that this text may help some people to get better images with their compact digital cameras. If you think that I missed something please let me know. I would also like to get some positive feedback if this was helpfull for you too.