Two weeks with the SX720: some questions (photo n00b)

You are doing the right thing by asking questions to learn how to use the camera. A couple points to start:

1) The sx730 is probably the most forgiving camera I have ever used. I wouldn't have thought it possible to handhold the camera, simply zoom in, point at a bald eagle 500' away and get very usable photos. The same holds true for targets many 1000's of feet away.

2) I never use any camera in auto mode (except Iphone, which I only use to document something I want to remember). Why let the camera guess at what you want in focus f.e. when you can easily tell it exactly what you want in focus by putting the little red box on the target?

Now in terms of your situation, I would keep it simple:

a) put camera in M mode unless shooting video.

b) Put on widest aperture at whatever focal length (zoom) you are using and leave it there. Widest means the smallest f number.

c) put IS0 on 80 - 200 if possible, or max of 800 if you need to. Make sure auto-iso is off.

d) Adjust shutter speed so that the exposure shown on the LCD is what you want (f.e. is the face bright enough in the photo but not too bright). Make sure the little exposure slider (shown below) is visible on the LCD. When the slider is on "0" that means it is at what the camera thinks is middle exposure for that scene. You can make it lighter or darker by changing shutter speed (it doesn't have to be at "0", that is just a guide for you and a starting place from which you can make it higher or lower as needed). You'll find that most of the time "0" is very close what you want. Then fire away.

If you find that the exposure at "0" is always way off then you can change from "evaluative" metering to "center weighted" or "spot".  That will reduce the area for what the camera calculates as "0".  But most likely you won't have to mess with that and it might be confusing at first.  Just pick one for now such as "center weighted" or "evaluative" and adjust shutter speed as suggested above.

Now of course this is a simplification and there are nuances to the above for various situations. For example if you are shooting a moving subject, you need a faster shutter speed such as 1/500, 1/1200 etc.

Study the "exposure triangle" to see how aperture, shutter speed, and ISO affect each other.

As far as AF, I turn servo on, small box for focus point, turn off "continuous".

Here are some SX730 examples of the type of photos you can get effortlessly once you understand how to use cameras a bit more. These are all handheld, literally point and shoot efforts (except the Jupiter shot where I used manual focus and a tripod).

Handheld 960mm equiv.

handheld 960mm Equiv.

Jupiter with 4 moons 960mm equiv. tripod mounted

Dandelion, at widest angle (24mm)

More at:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4290302

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4287147

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4273742