Main things to look for are:
Do NOT use Automatic Mode... you'll find the same problem on the older film versions of the Canon A-1, AE-1 and AE-1+Program. Good cameras don't take good pictures by themselves. Good pictures are taken by Good photographers with Good cameras.
Canon has always made Good cameras, including their Digital ones. Much better in my opinion than Nikon for both older film models and the newer Digital ones as well.
Use manual settings. This will take a bit of time and patience, but at least it's cheaper using a Digital camera than it used to be with a 35mm film camera as you don't have the costs of the film or the development fees to worry about.
Follow the rules below:
1. ISO Speed... keep it as low as possible. The brighter the surroudings by natural or man-made light, the better the picture will be, but even in darker indoors environments, still try to keep it low (100 - 200 max). Nothing over 200 or you start getting grainy results.
2. Adjust your aperature according to the environment you want to shoot. If you have a bright background (sun shining through a window) and want a good picture of somebody inside the room, close your aperature setting down about 1.5 or so depending on the brightness to get a better picture. Auto settings try to balance the bright back with the darker forefront and you'll get a much darker picture than you want. Similarly, in darker indoors settings, you'll want to open your aperature up as much as possible to get in as much light as possible. If you open it up too much and indoors lighting starts to give a hallation effect, then drop the aperature down 0.5-1.0 to loose the brighter lit indoors scenes.
3. Use a flash where possible, but there are flash limitations as well. Pros use the more expensive flashes that allow you to bounce the flash at various angles and cover various distances. These techniques with the right flash and intensity can be used to properly light somebody standing even 15 feet away (if the flash and camera are set up properly). But using that same flash setting for somebody only 6 feet away, you will blind the people you want to take a picture of and make the picture TOO bright as well.
4. DO NOT USE White Balance. This is another grainy producer.
5. If you don't want to use a flash, then carry a tripod with you, but your subjects must stand still too. If you have a tripod but your subjects are moving... then you'll need some kind of flash.
A combination of all 1, 2, 3 & 5 will give you your best pictures with little or no grainy effect what so ever... but you've gotta learn how to use the camera to do what you want with it. If you set it properly... it will take good pictures. If you screw up the settings, depending on what you screwed up... your picture will also turn out screwed-up. (* GRIN *) But if you let the camera do everything for you... you'll never know what you get.
Personally, I like to set everything manually myself as that way I know what I'll get every time... but remember... I've been using Canon AE-1's and A-1's since 1977 as well.
Walt
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