Thanks everyone! I only have a couple of seconds, but I wanted to acknowledge the help.

I *do* have an sx50 - I guess I have posted so much about that, I didn't want to labour the point. I will take a look at the manual this morning when I get home. It just threw me, and I was in a bit of a rush - dinner was in the oven, and I just wanted a quick walk down the street...

I still think that it should change anything else, rather than shutter speed, if I have Tv selected. I don't care about ISO or aperture in this case.

I suppose the test worked, in that it appears I will need the tripod - although I will run another test using manual and see if I can get it right. It would be a pain to have to keep dragging the tripod in and out of the car - it probably won't fit unless I fold the legs each time...

Anyway, thanks to all who responded. I will dig deeper into it when I get back from my morning session.

I took my camera out this evening for some test shots of houses all done up with Chtistmas lights. At some point, I want to go all around the place taking pictures of some of them, and I wondered if I needed to mess with a tripod or not.

So, handheld, camera set to Tv, shutter speed set to 1/80th of a second. I was shooting wide-angle and IS was on, so I figured that would be fast enough.

So, why did the camera use shutter speeds of nearly a full second - on one occasion, a full *15 seconds*???
The way the world used to work, if I said I wanted 1/80th, then I *got* 1/80th, even if it were completely under/over-exposed.

I don't understand what was going on here...

Additional info:

There appears to be a limit on file size. I have run a bunch of tests, and am downloading them now, but it appears that each of them is 3.99 GB in size. I get 16 min 17 seconds in 1920, twenty-some minutes in 1280, and longer on 640 (it was up to 40 minutes last time I looked at it before it stopped.)

Anyone know of a way to have it restart a new recording at that point? The other cameras are all HD, and I would hate to have this one be the limiting factor!

Hi, Has anyone got any experience of shooting video on their beastie? I mentioned in another thread that I was planning on using mine to record a Christmas Eve service at church. Last night, I took it to choir practice and set up to record, just as a test.

It does ok, although the light will probably be lower on the day. The pictures are certainly acceptable, and the sound is pretty good too. I will have 3 other cameras recording, and have access to the church audio recording too, so sound should not be an issue.

My problem is that it stopped recording after 16 minutes and 17 seconds. There was still a ton of space on the card, and the battery was still showing 3 bars. They are the only things that the manual lists as causing a recording to stop...

One of my other cameras stops automatically after 20 minutes, so that was my first thought. Not with it stopping at such a strange time, though.

I am going to play around and try with some different settings and stuff, but I wondered if anyone out there had any pearls of wisdom.

I have included a jpeg grabbed from the video, just out of interest. As you can see, it is not exactly broadcast standard, but this is only a recording for interested members of the congregation.

Thanks in advance for any tips!

I like the wagon, but the others are a bit too far for my taste.

Feeling inspired by some of these water shots - besides, I can't just leave it hanging on 39 pages, can I?

This one dolphin was fascinated by me filming (these are all taken from a miniDV tape). She kept coming back around to watch me. At one point, she even blew a perfect ring of bubbles, but it didn't come out well on the recording. The orca, well, what can you say?

If I have time, I plan on taking my gear along to choir practice tonight and doing a test run. I have 4 different cameras, so I plan to set them up in different parts of the church and see what I get. It's no big deal, just want to try it out and see. If it doesn't work, I haven't lost anything - except for wasting all those photons, anyway!

Anything which *is* left (not much, I hear) would be following the original orbit. Never approaches closer than about 30 million miles to us.

There is a chance that the Earth will pass through the dust cloud (pretty much all that is left) early in the new year. The most that will happen is a few extra shooting stars. Most people will never notice.

We actually pass through clouds of debris from several comets every year. The perseids and the leonids are the ones which come to mind. One of them, I can't remember which, is dust which came off comet Halley over the centuries.

Not bad at all, for those conditions. I am planning on using my sx50 to shoot video of a Christmas Eve service - it has to be video because I am singing and playing handbells throughout. If it handled the light this well, I don't anticipate any real problems.

Ah, potatoes, my favourite fruit! Nice composition, and pin-sharp.

I feel that it would be better with the mountain more to one side, than right in the middle. Part of me says it should be more to the left - but I would hate to lose those great clouds!

It is a great shot, though...

Ok, here are a couple...

Tynemouth Priory


Tynemouth Priory again...


And just for a change... Yep, Tynemouth Priory...

42 - and a lot of that stuff is not included in the citizenship tests I had to take. You don't have to know the names of the supreme court justices, for one thing.

The language requirements are a total joke! I had to take a day off work and travel 80 miles to take the 'tests'. To prove I could read English, I was given a paper and had to read: "When is Columbus day?". I didn't have to *answer* it, just read it. To prove I could write English, I had to write down: "Columbus day is October the" whatever. Again, I didn't have to know it, I was told what to write.

Cute shot... What I think would improve it, is if you had 'broken bits' of the frame falling from the right-hand side. Just my ramblings...

Wow! The detail is amazing... You can follow their eyes!