Camera settings
 

I have been using my digital camera to take photos of my children. There is something going on that I don't understand, I took the first photo below and then I wanted to reshoot my daughter without such a big smile. I put her in the same exact place just 20 minutes after the first shot and look how much darker it came out. I used the exact same settings.

My camera is a Canon PowerShot s30. I just learned about the 'white balance' so I had set that. I also set the speed at 1/30 and the Fstop at 5.0. The sun was out in both shots, I used the same light inside.

The camera must be setting something automatically but I can't figure out what is left to set? This isn't the first time this has happened, hopefully somebody can tell me how I can correct this?

Thank you,

Joan

Not quite same
 

Oh, actually I can see that she's not in the exact same place, she's on a different step. I was going to put her into a different photo with my son, but I think the difference in these photos is sufficient to illustrate my question.

Joan

Settings
 

Joan-

I have a Canon PowerShot Pro90 and I noticed the same thing the other day. Part of it was the time of day - the sun was in the process of setting and I didn't realize how much darker it was getting. But the other thing is that it seems my camera (and maybe yours) must have some way of re-setting itself to "normal" specs if I leave it a while. It also has an annoying way of getting reset to different specifications if my fingers brush against one knob.

Camera re-setting
 

Hmm, you may have something there. I don't think it should be doing that but maybe it does. I suppose it could be resetting itself. But, on my samples above I started fresh with the second batch when I needed just a photo of my daughter. I turned the camera on and that's what I got. Maybe it's when the camera is turned off it resets, but other times I've gotten some nice photos then after a short break they're darker.

I think there must be something else that needs to be set manually, I just don't know what it is. Do you set an Fstop?

I need to know about that knob!

Thanks,

Joan