Figured it out

[Soulburner]

Its all about how much light you give the camera...and flash off. Not great, but much better:

[jamaljaco]

Originally posted by Soulburner
Its all about how much light you give the camera...and flash off. Not great, but much better: I agree, I'm a novice,so don't ask a lot of tech stuff,lol,
I have found that flash can kill a good shot , I almost never use it.I use natural light when I can, use a tripod and a longer exposure. I took this shot to show some moisture damage.

[jamaljaco]

Of course a high end camera helps .

[sky]

i never use a flash when i can do without. with some cheapo cams you just have to use flash to get low exposure times - so i sometimes setup a screen right in front of the flash, preferably dark so it won't reflect as much - does it sometimes :D
and afterall you have to fool around alot with exposure times and aperture sizes (is it called that??) to get it right. i've had it down for my oldfashioned minolta, had to relearn everything with the canon eos d30 (digi) again.

[jamaljaco]

Originally posted by sky
you have to fool around alot with exposure times and aperture sizes (is it called that??) Correct, Sky your english has always been excellent . In fact I can hear your american (east coast) accent , LoL.:D
Oh yea ,almost forgot cermets = trimmers , I think, hehe

[sky]

lol, dunno. i sometimes feel like a babe in the woods :) - babe with a texan drawl (tho some guys in las vegas took me for an englishmen in new york, lol) - still trying to perfect my david coulthard scottish accent (tm) :D

oh.. figuring exposure times is way harder with digital cams than it is with the oldfashioned analogue ones. not that the eos is dirt cheap crap (not even close), but under certain circumstances some settings with shorter exposure times actually give you brighter pictures - which would seem to me to be wrong. to test this i fixed the cam on a tripod, switched the exposure times and then used the timer to take a pic of my case in action (in almost complete darkness).

[Soulburner]

I don't know about "exposure time" but there is a setting for exposure compensation but I haven't messed with it.

I put the card under a bright lamp when I took that pic, it seems the camera is able to focus much better that way. I do agree natural light would be the best most likely.

[Kurupt]

I dont know if someone already said something... But it is all about light and shutter speed. Get a tripod and keep the shutter open longer and you will have really nice pics.