Along Frying Pan Road, Herndon, VA
Many people don’t realize the power contained within their simple, mild-mannered point and shoot cameras. It’s a shame, really, because the avenues for creativity can be greatly expanded when one knows which options to push on the camera. The above pictures is one such example - most people don’t take advantage of the “manual” mode found on most cameras to take interesting motion photographs. To get the shot above with my PowerShot SX200 IS (entry level point and shoot), I first set the exposure to manual mode, changed the shutter speed and aperture to allow for a 10 second exposure, then held my arms against the console of the car while my wife was driving me down a back road in Herndon, VA. The result? Something totally unique and very hard to replicate. It’s a on-of-a-kind thing, and that’s neat in my book.
Here’s another one:
Driving on Rt. 28 near Dulles, VA
This one was slightly more tricky, but easy just the same. I did the same thing exposure-wise, but now I’m in the back seat trying to get a shot of the interior while the car is moving. To keep some semblance of what the interior looked like, I braced myself by hugging the passenger seat to eliminate the jostling of the car as we sped down the highway. The end result came out great - our car speeding through a futuristic-looking tunnel. I could have helped myself out further by bringing along my Gorillapod for more stability, but I didn’t have it with me at the time (0h well).
Lastly, here's one more:
Lights at DAR Constitution Hall
This was taken inside DAR Constitution Hall right before a show. Unlike the two others, this one I intentionally introduced some movement by jostling the camera around during the exposure. I was looking for interesting patterns to make out of the lights above the stage.
So I guess my main point is this: if you are looking to get more creativity out of your camera, you need not buy a new one. As I've exhibited in this post w/ motion-photos, all you really need to do is take a look at what you already have and experiment until you find something that really piques your interest. All of those unused options on your point and shoot are crying for attention. Heed their call!