Although the weather has been pretty bad around here, I did manage to take a few shots this past weekendwith the Pol on andin macro and super macro modesand I must say the difference in AF speedwas significant. The camera did not hunt for focus, not once. Pictures were sharp and well exposed (see below). This is great news (at least to me since one of my major complains about the S2 was its poor AF in macro/super macro modes) and from now on, unless I'm taking pictures in low light, the Pol filter stays on.

#2 (I posted this picture in the Weekly Photo Challenge forum as well)

#3 (also posted in the WPC forum).

By all means.. a definately nice find, one which I myself am going to experiment with and use when taking pictures. Hopefully I can get some shots that can rival some of these latest ones.. nice! :G

Thanks, Buhammot. One thing I forgot to mention, I used LINEAR polarizer, not circular as recommended by all camera manufacturers. Perhaps there was an issue using linear polarizer filters with the old auto focus SLR but I certainly found that not to exist, at least with my two 12x zoomcameras (S2 and H1). So, no need to spend the xtra $$$ on circular polarizers. A good quality linear polarizer (mine is Hoya all glass) should do the trick.

Okay, admittedly many of the comments on this forum are way above my knowledge of photography. I have skipped over some comments in the past regarding the polarizer filters. I have the s2 and because of this forum I can start to relate to some of the issues PLUS how to try and address them. TO help me out, why might I want to by one of these and which one. Particularly for inside shots,low light. I also took some pictures of a kids hockey game inside an arena with bright lights. As I reviewed them on the computer I could see that if I looked for detail to the face I would see splotches of color in the face (maybe grainy?). This is with no flash, full zoom, lens ope pretty wide to capture light. WOuld a filter havce helped here? Thanks

I can sympathize with you. Sometimes, results from the S2 can be pretty frustrating and disappointing, to say the least. One of the downsides of the Pol. filter is the fact that due to it being dark, it cuts into the f/stop (basically, you need more light). That's almost unnoticeable when taking pictures in bright daylight but it can hurt the indoor/low light shots unless you have very steady hands or a tripod to prevent camera shake. My experience has been that the S2 AF is poor, specially in low light. The Pol. helps with the AFsignificantly from what I can tell but I don't use it in low light. I think taking pictures inside a hockey arena is not that easy because of the brightness reflected by the ice. Obviously flash is no use since you are too far from the subject so the two most important settings are WB (make sure it matches the type of light inside the arena) and ISO. You can force the ISO by setting at say 200 and see if there is enough light to prevent camera shake. If you leave it at AUTO, the camera may choose 400 and picture quality at this level will deteriorate for sure. In addition, unless you are very familiar with manual settings, I'dset the camerato P mode if you want to force the ISO setting or AUTO mode, in which casethe camera will do all the adjustments based on the existing light condition. I suggest you flip-flop between the two settings to see what kind of results you get. So, back to the filter question, the answer is, buy the Pol. for outdoor, bright lightshooting. It will help improve the AF speed and accuracy as well as picture quality.

Thanks for the information. I will keep it in mind as I experiment with the settings.

Interior lighting is almost never bright enough for this kind of camera. If the camera ISO setting was on automatic it may have moved to ISO 400 to try and make the most of the light. ISO 400 is the most sensitive light setting for the sensor - but it is incredibly noisy - hence the grain.

None of the image stabilized point-and-shoots are any good in respect to noise when used in low light. Noise is the shadows of any normally illuminated shot is also a problem for the current superzoom cameras.

I normally manually set the ISO to 50 or 100, and sometimes 200 if I'm desperate. This keeps the noise down, but then low light will require the shutter speed to be much slower, so subject movement and camera shake become the big issue. Using less zoom makes a world of difference to the required shutter speed - so moving closer to the action is a good idea. Putting the camera on continous shooting at the highest speed helps maximise the chance of a decent shot. If you still need to use ISO 200 or 400, you can buy noise reduction software such as Neat-Image or Noise-Ninja.

agent4u wrote: