Taking indoor pics of a new born?

[18 inch Crappie]

I have a Canon A70 and if I trun off the flash the pics come out dark and with the flash on they are (hot) or very bright. I have tried going far away and use the zoom so the flash is not so close but still have problems. Can you turn down the flash? I always use auto mode but you can adjust the F, time ,SO and things like that but it is Greek to me? Any help would be great.

[Tom Wilson]

18,

I was hoping someone familiar with that model of camera would help out here, but I am going to make a couple of assumptions. I assume that your camera is a point and shoot digital camera that allows you to make some manual adjustments. I would say first off to find your manual, and read thoroughly the section on flash, as this is where your problems are coming from. Flash photography is not easy and takes a long time to learn properly. Your small camera doesn't have much of a flash. It probably has a flash with a GN (guide number-used to measure flash output) of around 8-11. This means that at distances of around say ten feet or so that your photo will be perfect. Distances less than that will be brighter, and distances farther than that will suffer huge light fall off and get very dark. Most of those types of cameras, even with the flashes, don't actually do any TTL metering. This is where the camera measures the light while the flash is on. Most of those cameras, take a scene measurement, apply the settings and then using an algorithm adjusts accordingly to the fact that you are using a flash. The problem is that it figures this math based on a standard distance from the lens. Too close--too bright, too far--too dark. You can play with this distance to get the shot correct and use your zoom feature (another assumption) to get the correct composition. My suggestion however would be to get close to more natural light like a large window, or illuminate the room brightly and then don't use the flash. I hope you have good luck and get the shots you're looking for.