Help - Manual Settings.

[.Mark]

As you will all have gathered I am very new to this photography business. My camera has some settings which I can fiddle around with and I understand a few of them but 2 confuse me.
Can anyone give any advice on the following and in which circumstances I should change them and what they should be changed to?
I could RTFM but trying to understand English translated from Japenese gets tricky!!

1. A. Priority. This has settings 'Auto', F2.8, F4.8 & F8.2

2. EV. This has 0 - Default and then increments of 0.3 in a minus and plus range down to -2.1 and up to +1.5

I'm sure I could get better pictures with a little knowledge of what these do.

As always TIA.

[.Mark]

Not sure if it's superior Graham, I have the S304z I think it's almost the same as yours but with more pixels. In fact I was a knats whisker from getting that one when Fuji released the new one the very same week!

[.Mark]

Thanks Simpo,
So if I read this properly, to take a shot of a race car for instance I would need to set the Aperture Priority to f8.2, (mine doesn't have shutter speed (I don't think)) this would automatically adjust the shutter speed to a faster setting?? (If it follows that you set the shutter speed it does the aperture).

And if they are racing on an ice field surrounded by snowy mountains in full sunlight, I need to set the EV as negative as possible??

[.Mark]

Thanks guys,
I understand it more now. Time to get out there and start clicking away!

[.Mark]

Nope, seems to make sense. Thing is I don't have the shutter speed setting to adjust.
It does have an automatic 'Sport' mode, which is OK, but I'm sure I could improve it by doing it manually. If I knew what I was doing.