Does anyone know how I can select the shutter speeds below 1 sec? I want to know how to select the speeds down to the 1/1500 and faster...I can't figure it out how.

Thanks

 

The only manual selection of shutter speeds it provides is for long exposures, which are accessed through the Exposure Compensation menu. Everything else is full auto.

 

you know way too much about photography.

that is all.

 

So when I am shooting at night, does it automatically switch to like 1 second of exposure? When I am trying to take pics of moving objects, or if I am following the object, it streaks due to long shutter speeds...thats what I want to know if that is controlable.

 

Oh, so you want long shutter speeds?

Yeah just pull up the Exposure Compensation control. It's the +/- button on the back of the camera. You will see a scale that reads -2..-1..0..+1..+2 and to the right of that scale a little box (most likely with 1" in it) and up/down arrows next to it.

To use long shutter speeds from the Exposure Compensation control, just press either the up or down button on the back of the camera and it'll highlight the shutter speed in the little box on the right. You then pick the shutter speed you want. There's no metering in this mode so you basically just have to take a picture at one setting, see how it looks in review mode, and adjust the shutter speed as necessary.

 

no no...I want shorter shutter speeds so that what I see on the screen is what is taken.

The other night I was at an airshow, and they had a night show, and "Fat Albert" did a jet assist take off and I wanted to get a pic of it, but when I clicked the button it took a second to register, so that meant the shutter was open for a second so my pics were streaky...I wanted to use a faster shutter speed so that it didn't do that, and just took what was on the screen. And also, how at night the LCD screen has lag to it due to I'm guessing high processing.

 

As I stated earlier, the only manual control you have on your camera is the long shutter speeds. You don't have the option otherwise.

The lag you experienced was not necessarily because of a long shutter speed. If you go and just push the button all the way, the camera has to focus the lens and calculate the exposure before it takes the picture. If you want to speed up lag time then you should push the shutter button in to the first click stop before you take the picture, which will focus and take a meter reading. Then you push the shutter the rest of the way and it'll take the picture immediately with the settings it has already figured out.

But since you're talking about a picture of a fast-moving subject at night and with no flash available (the plane was most likely too far away) you're pretty much limited in what you can get no matter what. You need a fast shutter speed to freeze action, and you lots of light to use a fast shutter speed and at night there isn't much light. So even if you had a camera that you could set a faster shutter speed on, there wouldn't be enough light to give you a proper picture.

 

try using this mode: , but like Mike said, youre really hindered by the amount of light at night

 

The SD400 doesn't have a "sports" scene mode. h:

 

I wish I could adjust my shutter speed on my camera.