Basic Skills for Micro-Photography
Reason: Take IXUS 950IS as example, please refer to the Advanced Camera User Guide Shooting-Switching between Focusing Mode p.49. In most cases, the purpose of micro-photography is to take pictures on a specific part of a subject. During the shooting process, that specific part is usually moved to the center of the LCD monitor. The camera will only focus at a central AF (autofocus) frame area when AiAF is turned OFF.
This is convenient for focusing on a specific part of a subject with greater certainty. Hence, all the user has to do is to move X-Loupe up and down searching the best working distance and find the best focus. This focusing mode is more appropriate for micro-photography. If AiAF is turned ON, X-Loupe might find many auto-focusing spots which are not necessarily wanted. This situation occurs frequently on taking pictures for a non-flat subject.
Shooting with the Auto Focus Lock (AF Lock), press the shutter button
halfway and press the button 
. The AFL icon will display on the right of camera LCD monitor. The AF lock is convenient because you can let go of the shutter button. In addition to that, the AF lock is still effective after the picture is taken and it allows you to take the next picture with the same focus. It is suitable to used when the X-Loupe is mounted on the stand, just rotating the knob ofStandthe stand and taking the pictures as desired. Please refer to IXUS 950IS Advanced Camera User Guide P.51and P.52.
Basic Skills for Micro-Photography
3. Continuous Shooting and Self Timer:
To take pictures for a living thing such as insects, it is suggested to use Continuous Shooting Mode, and then pick the best one from shooting. For IXUS 950IS, please refer to Advanced Camera User Guide P.37.
Using the Self-Timer in micro-photography can prevent the shaking while you press the shutter button. Besides 2sec and 10sec Self-Timer, you can also change the delay time and number of shots (i.e. Customer Timer). For IXUS 950IS, please refer to Basic Camera User Guide P.16~17.
4. Zoom:
A subject can be zoomed approximately up to 16X, using the combined digital (4X) and optical (4X) zoom. When the zoom is set higher than the 4X optical zoom (where the digital zoom will be used), there might be some noises and the sawtooth-like stripes showing on the LCD monitor with only
0.23mega-pixels resolution. It is better to inspect the subject from LCD monitor when the digital zoom is used. When a picture with good quality is need, please use only the optical zoom on shooting to get better result.
The Digital Tele-Converter, pp.33~34 in the Advance Camera User Guide of Canon IXUS950IS, allows users to mimic the effect of telephoto by using digital zoom. The focal length is 1.6X or 2.0X increased, which is good for taking pictures both from the short and long distance. The Digital TeleCoverter can also improve the magnification of X-Loupe. For example, with 300X objective lens of X-Loupe and 2.0X Digital Tele-converter, the magnifica- tion is 600X.
5. Distance:
In micro-photography, any tiny minor vibration (such as the pulse) can have some influences on picture quality. To acquire maximum stability, the working distance of X-Loupe was designed to approach the subject, like
