dr nick Posted August 1, 2004 Report Share Posted August 1, 2004 This digital camera is a pain......using the old 35mm was dead easy ....aim... click....picture Took a few pics of my bike earlier...downloaded them ...and some the wife took at a party today...99% where blurred...( see below)..not the crystal clear images we where promised when we bought the camera It seems that you have to hold the camera absolutely still for about 3 seconds to get a clear image....neigh on impossible for me without the aid of a tripod. regards N Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Posted August 1, 2004 Report Share Posted August 1, 2004 There is a learning curve with digital cameras. The shutter lag is notorius! The trick is to push the shutter half way. You should be able to do that and then feel slight resistance before it goes all the way. The half way push locks the focus. It may also beep or show a light at this point to say the focus is locked. As I say, there is a learning curve and it does take a while to get used to them, but the good thing is it isn't costing you money to take these wasted pics! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr nick Posted August 2, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 2, 2004 Cheers Andy Its right about not costing money....but .....its costing some really good pictures which cant be taken again...My wife and I have ruined some really good one off pictures because of this so its Practice practice practice it is then regards N Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianj Posted August 2, 2004 Report Share Posted August 2, 2004 (edited) Hi, Most of the camera manufacturers skimp on their AF mechanisms, unless of course you buy the top end SLR's. Cheap AF means that in order to get consistently good results you need to know how to help it along. When you aim the camera, make sure the centre portion of your viewfinder has the object you want to focus on in it. Duh!, he says, but more importantly, make sure that the object you are focusing on has some contrasty vertical patterns in it. Horizontal patterns aren't as effective. Example: if you were taking a photo of a bird cage then aim the centre of the viewfinder right smack on a vertical bar. Sometimes though the photo you want to take doesn't have any contrasty vertical patterns at it's centre. The answer then is to aim the camera off to one side of the object where there are some lines and half-press the shutter, wait for it to lock and centre your object and then press the button the rest of the way. Even with this knowledge then we all still get duff photos......reason is that you gotta watch out that your camera didn't focus on something in the background. Take the birdcage again, using the bars to set focus is sometimes not an ideal, it's best if your contrast patterns are in the same plane, not one half being your object and the other being the blue sky in the background. Your pic looks like the AF (auto-focus) didn't lock at all. It doesn't even look as if it locked on anything in the background. Some digicams won't let you take the pic if the focus hasn't locked! If it were me taking a pic of your Beta then I'd have half-pressed at just above the swing-arm bolt somewhere.then composed the bike in the shot. PS. On a really bright sunny day the vertical lines thing isn't so important, it's just that the less light there is the more you need good lines. For 'action' trials photography then focusing on a rock where the bike "will" be and holding the shutter half-pressed until the bike comes along is the way to go. Although, it can chew the batteries a lot faster. Ian. Edited August 2, 2004 by IanJ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
city trials Posted August 4, 2004 Report Share Posted August 4, 2004 Your memory stick or card has alot to do with this also. I recomend a 256mb or a 512 mb, they read the image much faster. All other cards are slow, slow slow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colly Posted August 4, 2004 Report Share Posted August 4, 2004 make sure you use the flash at night time, if it is a big camara i.e 3 meg pixels, you will have to hold it for longer., also make sure its not formatted to save stright away as a .gif as this limits the coulours to 256. as a .jpg alllows millions, this shouldnt affect it but might do Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bullfrog Posted August 4, 2004 Report Share Posted August 4, 2004 regarding the action shot advice - which was excellant - I'd like to add the following: Even after doing the "half press" on the shutter button, the electronic cameras do NOT take the picture at the "instant" you press the button the rest of the way. So you need to "guess-timate" the lead time between when the button is pressed and when the photo is actually taken. Practice this in the back yard, review the photos then dump them - no film cost and you've learned something! That's one of the cool things about the digitals. I'd also recommend that you pan the camera with the bike and rider (keep moving the camera to follow the action) until you KNOW the photo has been taken. This helps assure that the photo doesn't end up with just the back half of the bike in the frame when the photo actually "clicks". . . . and the panning MAY help reduce blurring of bike and rider in action shots and low light situations (at the cost of blurred terrain). Finally, I'm pretty sure the blurriness in the photo you posted is due to being out of focus - not due to camera shake. I'm an old 35mm photographer myself and had to learn a the above items with my Nikon Coolpix 4300 plus the items below: . . . when walking around an event with the camera turned on, I must do a "half press" approx. 10 seconds before taking a picture to "wake up" the camera . . . then I can aim and "half press" again to pre-focus on the photo area . . . then I "pan" with the rider to near the photo area and press the rest of the way on shutter button . . . and continue to pan with the bike/rider All of that is kind of a pain - but - you can go out with the guys for some practice riding and practice your photography, and you can look at the results as soon as you get home (or maybe even on the camera, on site) and learn what works and what doesn't. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr nick Posted August 4, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2004 All very useful information Thankyou Just one thing about checking ,then deleting......on my small LCD screen on the camera...the pictures dont look blurred .Its only when I see them on my PC that I can tell Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bullfrog Posted August 5, 2004 Report Share Posted August 5, 2004 My camera has feature which allows me to zoom in when checking photos in the on-camera display - so I can really see whether things are focused or not. Your camera may have that too - might check the camera manual. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtt Posted August 10, 2004 Report Share Posted August 10, 2004 I too have recently had problems with blurred shots. I've been using the same cheap digital camera for a couple of years and have never had problems until recently. Now it seems most shots are blurred just like Nick's. Is it possible that the AF is dying? At first I though maybe something on the lens, but cleaned it and same results. Great tips guys! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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