Point-and-shoot cameras: 5 useful tips
Sydney Opera House
For those that are unaware, I have an interest in photography and love to just take random shots when I see something that appears interesting. But unlike many avid photographers, I don't have a fancy digital SLR Camera, instead I have a normal point-and-shoot camera (Fuji Finepix J110w).
As with most point-and-shoot cameras you are quite limited to the number of settings you can play around with even if it is in manual mode. Unfortunately this means many "How to take an awesome photo" tutorials out there are quite useless since you can't follow their suggestions of increasing or decreasing the ISO, aperture, shutter speed, exposure etc.
However, all is not lost as you can definitely still take awesome photos with your humble camera. Here are five tips that I find work quite well for me, if you have your own technique/tips I would be very interested to hear them 
1. No Flash!
This might be a personal preference, but I find when you use flash when taking the photo in a dark/dim place, the light from the flash is usually too strong which makes the whole photo look artificial. The simplest solution is to try and brighten up the place - turn on a light, open the curtains etc. Lighting is quite important in taking a good photo, so the more flexible you can be with your lighting the better.
Another alternative is to cover your camera's flash with a piece of paper/tissue. This somewhat subdues the flash while still providing a source of light. I've only tried this a couple of times and overall it worked quite well. Of course, you can always take two photos, one with the flash and one without - that way you will have both alternatives and you can pick the best one.
Having said all that, there are always exceptions when using flash and as weird as it may sound, using flash outdoors (where it is nice and bright) can often give you better photos - it lights up your subject just enough to make them clear, but since the surrounding is bright as well the flash doesn't stand out like a sore thumb.
the tiny blood red moon
Well, today was the day - total lunar eclipse - the blood red moon! I actually had class 6pm-8pm, but the lecturer was nice and let us out at around 7pm (when the eclipse started) then we all sort of went out again at 7:50pm, even though the lecture hadn't fully finished. The photos I took came out alright considering I didn't have a high-tech camera - all I have is a simple "point and shoot" type (Nikon Coolpix 4100 to be exact).