From: rajiv@hilltop.mitre.org (Rajiv Kohli)
Newsgroups: rec.photo
Subject: Minolta 7000 Qs + Need help in improving my photographs
Keywords: Minolta 7000
Date: 28 Jul 92 13:45:12 GMT
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA


I have a Minolta 7000 with two lenses which I quite often toggle. My problems are
the following and I seek suggestions from one and all. The lenses I have are 
	70-200mm
	28-85mm

	Flash, I forgot the model number (2800AF?), but it is with the zoom feature in it

	Anyway

1)	Whenever I take a picture of a scenery and a person together. I always get
	scenery out of focus to some degree depending upon how far I am from my
	wife. Basically, I would like to always have her and the scenery in sharp
	focus. 

	This is how I usually do it. I close/zoom in on to her, check the meter reading for 
	aperture and shutter speed on the display. Then I lock that setting and do a
	wide angle to include the rest of the scenery I am interested in. Almost
	always I get the background out of focus and blurry. Usually, I include her
	from waist up.

	I have noticed that I when I go back a couple of steps and include her all
	the picture is better. I also tried lowering the aperture setting. E.G: If
	the meter says 6.7 I would put the camera on aperture priority and reduce it to 
	4 or 4.5. But then the shutter speed would jump to 2000+ sometimes and be
	flashing. I noticed that in such cases the picture that I took came out very
	dark. Am I doing something terribly wrong.

	Can somebody suggest a good setting for the said. Please. I am planning to
	go to Alaska this Aug/Sept time frame and plan to take a lot of pictures.


2)	Killing the shadow with the fillin flash.
	I almost always carry a flash with me, even on a good sunny day. The reason
	being I don't like to contribute the scenery in the background from the
	angle I am standing. With my wife in the picture, there is 50% chance of a
	shadow. To clear that out, I flash. I would like to know what is the right
	setting for the above flash to not get her over exposed.

	E.g: If I include her and the scenery and I am at 28mm wide angle the flash
	is automatically adjusted to flash with max power to cover all the area. My
	wife gets over exposed. I lower it to minimum and either I still get the
	shadow or the skin tone is not right. Again, am I doing something wrong. OR
	I should just do shoot and trial. Is there some other way to handle this
	little problem.

3)	I would like to increase my zoom as I plan to go to a Tiger Reserve in
	India. And boy do I want to be far. I have heard of 2x2 or times 2 lens. How
	are the results. any particular model or mail shop. How much do they cost?

4)	Anybody know of a good filter to take portraits. Or what is a good setting
	for a protrait. I usually get good results by taking the pictures of my kids
	in the dawn, with 1/2 power fillin flash and the zoom in full with the
	200mm and put it on "PROGAM" setting - basically auto. I get good results
	but I feel they can be improved.

5)	Anybody figure out how to take double exposure on this camera? There is no
	control on film frame advancing.

6)	And last of all, can somebody tell me how to use the [+/-] feature. 


	Thanks in advance.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rajiv Kohli		Email: rajiv@mbunix.mitre.org Tel: (617) 271-3506
Mitre Corporation 	Intelligence System Integration and Support
202 Burlington Road 	Bedford, MA-01730 Mail Stop: K 306
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