I have an Olympus Camedia C-50 Zoom and probably almost 75% of my pictures turn our blurry. This is 5 meg pixel camera but it is very compact and LCD screen is small and it is very hard to tell that the photo is blurry until I load them onto my computer. Does anyone have any ideas on what I am doing wrong or what I can do to try and correct for this? Most of the picutures from Simon's Gotcha Day in China are blurry and those aren't pictures I can re-create.

By Kaye on Thursday, February 24, 2005 - 01:36 pm:

Chances are one of two things are the issue. First most cameras have to have the button held down halfway to focus (most beep), then you take the photo. The other thing is that focus thing is not always centered. Find something to photograph and take several pictures, you might need to write down what you did differently to figure out, maybe you need to have what you want focused on up to the right, etc. Check different distances also. The MP don't effect the clarity of the image unless you are blowing it up past a 8x10. Most amature photographers do not need more that a 2 or 3 mp camera.

By Frasersmama on Thursday, February 24, 2005 - 01:42 pm:

I have a different model, but my camera has several settings for close ups, auto etc, but the one I use most is called Sport and is for moving objects. Digital cameras often have a long delay when taking a picture and if anything is moving in your frame the picture will be blurry. The sport setting takes the photo faster and is less likely to be blurry. This is extremely helpful for taking photos of busy toddlers. I don't know if your camera has something similar, but it might be worth having a look at.

By Mommyof4 on Thursday, February 24, 2005 - 06:01 pm:

Thanks! The camera does have a sport option. I will try to take a few practice pictures with that setting and holding the shutter down half way and see if I can get some better results. Thanks for the suggestions.

By John on Friday, February 25, 2005 - 10:56 am:

One other tip...

I noticed that your camera has a 3X (f2.8-f4.8)optical zoom.

To avoid blurry pictures, avoid zooming except outdoors in decent light. Two reasons for this:


Zooms exaggerate camera shake. (Ever look thru a telescope or binoculars and try to keep the view steady)

Zooms reduce light entering the camera, making the camera use a lower shutter speed to compensate, which can't freeze movement anymore(making blurry pictures).

The flash range indoors for your camera is 11 feet (without zoom) and 6 1/2 ft with full zoom.

By Dawnk777 on Friday, February 25, 2005 - 02:40 pm:

We have little boxes that show up in the viewfinder, when you barely touch the shutter. Those are what the camera is focusing on.