Canon Powershot S2 IS: photography, help and advice

[Toby's my baby]

Ok, so this next week we have our county fair, and I'm going to enter some pictures, but I need help decideing. These are the ones me and my family have picked out. I'm not sure how many you can enter. Its just a little fair, so its not like the pictures have to be anything fantastic, but if you dont like any of the pictures I'm posting, for any reason please say so, because I need to narrow it down.... I'm pretty sure I like the first four, not so crazy about #3... *sorry about the crazy sizes*

#1


#2


#3


#4


#5


#6


#7


#8

[Roxyluvsme13]

#2, #4, #5 are my favorites.

[shais_mom]

I like all of them too!
I really like the one of the flower with rain drops

[shais_mom]

I figgered out some of the modes on my camera purely by accident -
some of them aren't as clear as I'd like but I am happy with them overall.
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/w...=9Qas2bFs1UUxA

[Sonia59]

Toby's my baby, #3, 4, 6 are my favorite

Kirsten, your pictures are very beautiful. I love the dragonfly picture

[Kirsten]

Thanks, Sonia!

Toby's my Baby, I love #5!

I also took some new shots meanwhile:


Full Moon
The moon, again, the full moon of last night. I used a flash this time. I think more than this is not possible with this cam, at least I tried various settings and this was the best result:




Orange Lily 2
I tried it again, without using flash. This time, the background turned out totally black, but I think it's not too bad.




LOL; edited because I just noticed: Maybe I should unite these two pictures somehow (unfortunately, I don't know anything about digiart) as a symbol for my girls. "Luna" and "Lily", you know...


Say "Cheeeese"!
I'm a bit upset with this one. It looked just perfect on the camera's display, but once downloaded to my computer, I found the contrast is too high, and it's also not really sharp.



Kirsten

[Kirsten]

LOL, I just "played" a bit and here's Luna's and Lily's new "emblem":




Kirsten

[Roxyluvsme13]

LOL, I just "played" a bit and here's Luna's and Lily's new "emblem":




Kirsten

I love that .

[Sonia59]

I could not find Orange Lily #1 back to compare the background, but you were very lucky with this shot! Do you have an idea how it turned black?

I bought a mini tripod and wanted to try catching the moon yesterday, but it was behind the clouds! I'll try another day.

[cloverfdx]

Wow great photos everyone . Awesome moon shots, i too am interested in how to do that (Might work with my camera). Staci i am just checking out your lastest set of photos at the moment, they are lovely so far .

[shais_mom]

great pics Kirsten!
Love the digi-art one!

[shais_mom]

Staci i am just checking out your lastest set of photos at the moment, they are lovely so far .

THANKS!

[Toby's my baby]

Beautiful photos Kristen!! How did you get the backgroud to turn out completly black on the Lily photo?

Gosh, you all are making it SO hard for me to decide what pictures to choose!! I have to enter them early thursday morning, and I haven't even picked them out yet!! I still need to pick them out, print them, and frame them! Gosh...I guess I'll have to decide for myself Thank you everyone for your help!

[Kirsten]

Thanks!

How did you get the backgroud to turn out completly black on the Lily photo?

Well, I don't know... I used the tv mode (F7,1, exposure time 1/320, no flash, spot focus). The sun was shining onto the blossom. I was surprised it turned out completely black.

Kirsten

[Sonia59]

Kirsten, yesterday night I tried again the moon shots. It does not turn like yours at all, like this one for example:



I know that my teleobjective is more limited than yours on my camera (x14 at maximum, comprising the use of digital zoom), but still, I should be able to catch the details of the moon, even if the moon would be smaller than yours in the centre of the picture. Can you indicate me the parameters of your picture?
And also, did you crop the picture you posted or is really this size on the original picture?