Why are my pics blurry?

Question

I have a Nikon coolpixL4. It's just a regular everyday digital camera. Anyway, when I take a picture it almost always comes out blurry. Is there something I need to change on my settings? Thanks for any help you can give.

Answer 1

I'm sorry if this is insulting, but often the cause is moving your hand too soon. You may be used to taking pictures with a non-digital camera. There is considerable shutter lag with point and shoot digitals and you have to be sure to hold still for long enough for the camera to actually take the picture. This will take up to a full second. Watch the little green light (usually) on the back of your camera. Hold the button half-way down and wait until it lights up steady instead of blinking. This means the auto-focus operation is complete. Press the button the rest of the way down and hold it there for about a second to allow time for the shutter to actually take the picture. Good luck!

Answer 2

There are three things that can cause blurriness in photos:

1. Focus
2. Camera movement
3. Subject movement


Focus
Make sure that your camera is focusing on your subject and not picking up something behind it. I dislike having the camera automatically pick a focus point. A lot of times it doesn't focus on what you want it to. This is why I always set the camera to a single focus point and use that to set focus. Learn how your camera focuses--does it need a lot of contrast? Does it matter if the contrast is vertical or horizontal? Knowing these types of things will help ensure that you get your subject in focus.

Also, make sure that both you (your camera) and your subject aren't moving by the time you take the picture. If you focus and something moves, it'll no longer be in focus.

Camera Movement
This is dependent upon your shutter speed and your focal length ("zoom"). At certain shutter speeds, the small, imperceptible movements that you make will make the picture blurry. The general rule of thumb is that you want your shutter speed at least equal to 1/focal length. For example, if you are shooting at 100mm, you want to have 1/100 sec shutter speed or faster. And don't forget that the focal length I'm talking about is the 35mm equivalent focal length. Your camera may have a true focal length of 8mm at it's widest setting, but it doesn't mean that you can shoot at 1/8 sec. It may be equivalent to 28mm, so you'd need at least 1/30 sec.

If your shutter speed is too slow, you can:
-try increasing your ISO and/or go to a wider aperture
-use a tripod/table top/etc. Basically brace your camera
-take a burst of several shots by holding the shutter button down. You might get lucky with one of them.

Subject Movement
As your shutter speeds get slower and slower, it becomes more and more important for your subject to remain still. At shutter speeds slower than 1/50 sec, subject motion can really start to be a problem.

Answer 3

If you set manually, make sure you set shutter speed faster than 1/250s if you hold it by hands otherwise you need to use a tripod. The pictures are blurry because of your hands are moving while taking pictures.

Answer 4

If your camera has both a viewfinder and a LCD screen, you ought to try shooting using the viewfinder. If you hold the camera at arm's length to take the pic, you are much more likely to have camera shake than if the camera is held tight to your face.

Answer 5

you need to hold the shutter button half way in until you hear a beep
then you know it is in focus