Can anyone help? Can't afford a mistake!

[JasonCousins]

Hi all! this is my 1st post on this forum so i hope you can help me out!

I currently have a Fuji S3000, and have taken only a handful of decent shots, i'm not sure if it is the camera, me or another reason! But i have decided to spend some money

I went to Disneyland Paris in October and got some VERY dissappointing results, only a couple turned out any good.
I have the luck of going again at the beginning of march, and this time i want to make up for my mistakes!

I have to now decide whether to spend money on a new camera, or accessories and bits for my S3000.
However i really am not sure what camera or parts to buy, i am quite a novice amateur, but i realyl want to get involved in photography i just need some help "kickstarting" things to get me off the ground.
My budget is probably around £300-£400 (at most).

I forgot to mention, high optical zoom is a must for me, and i want a minimum of 4Mp, i have 3 MP atm, but feel more will make a large difference. Also i would like a camera which has full manual mode, or at least nearing it so i can learn progressively as i get more and more into photography. But an Auto mode is still a must.

Any help will be useful!
Thanks

 

[seany]

Post some photo's for us please, and we can see if it's you or the camera that's at fault

 

[JasonCousins]

ok gonna sound real bad, but not used to forums, how do i post, and what kinda size you looking for?

 

[seany]

Ok,

Resize them to about 800 x 600 or smaller and make the file sze 120kb

If yo hit the Manage Attachments button you can post your photos from your pc

 

[JasonCousins]

ok only prob is i took bout 150 photo's... are they any easy ways of putting them all up somewhere with a tool of some kind? If not how many you want to see?

 

[seany]

Just post three that give a good example of the trouble you've been having

 

[broxy]

Hi, I also have the same camera and keeping it in sport mode gives me great pictures everytime.Don't normally get the red shakey hand symbol in this mode either.Hope this helps.

Broxy.

 

[seany]

I'm guessing that your photos are either blurred, under or over exposed, or out of focus

The sports mode will set a fast shutter speed, for a decent night shot you want slow speeds for which you may need a tripod to reduce blurring (depends on how long the shutter is open for)