Hi, I'm not only a newbie to CHDK, but also a newbie to any kind of photography, I have never really taken any pictures at all in any mode other than 'AUTO' ... so please pardon my ignorance.
I am fascinated by things like the water drop photos I've seen and other high speed shutter stop motion effects. I have a canon S3 IS camera, I've got CHDK working on it, and I can navigate the menus and see the extra photo settings that allow me to override the shutter speed, but I think I am missing something to be able to make this work. I get pictures that look basically the same no matter what I select in there. I am not sure what mode the camera should be in.. I try auto, thinking maybe the automatic settings would compensate for the high shutter speed I put in, ah, but somehow I don't think it's that simple. I try manual mode and fiddle around with it, but I really don't have a clue.. sometimes I get way over exposed completely white photos. When I set manual settings to something like ISO800 I can get photos that are in focus, but it's not really stopping the drop like some photos I've seen, and changing the high speed shutter settings only seems to be effective to a certain point, and then everything looks the same. I thought perhaps as a way to test how fast my shutter was going I could take pictures of my CRT monitor.. when I start off I get the whole screen, and as I increase the shutter speed, I start getting less and less of the screen, but it seems I can only get it down to about 1/2" wide stripe in various random positions, and never any thinner than that.. I'm not sure if it's because I'm not really overriding the shutter, or perhaps my idea is no good because the phosphor takes that long to fade out?? I have virtually no difference between shutters of 1/1000, 1/10000, 1/64000 and 1/100000
So here are my questions:
What mode do I put my camera in for this?
If it's some manual mode, how do I adjust the other parameters? I am guessing I want a high ISO
Do I have to do something to enable flash sync? or does it always sync?
is there a setting somewhere for flash duration or flash sync speed? I can't figure out how to adjust the flash other than with the canon flash power settings in the original menus. I set it on minimum power thinking that would be the fastest.
If someone would be kind enough to explain the procedure for this, I would greatly appreciate it!