Hi everyone,

I decided to try a digital camera after many years of resisting them, and bought the Olympus 720SW. It's waterproof and shockproof? Seemed almost too good to be true. And maybe it is.

I can't figure out for the life of me why 3 out of 5 pictures turn out blurry. My hands aren't as still as they once were, but I don't have this problem with my son's camera. Is there something I'm doing wrong? Or a way to avoid this? The motion blur setting only makes the pictures more grainy, and that's not acceptable to me.

Thanks in advance, folks!

 

What lighting conditions are you taking the picture under? It could easily be that the shutter speed is to long and even minor hand movement is causing the blur. See if there is a way to manually control the shutter speed and see if that helps.

 

You have Digital Image Stabilization on your camera. >>>Click Here<<< and see if this helps.

 

The digital image stabilization makes the photos grainy... sorry if I didn't make that clear in my original post.

And moeronn: I've noticed the blur is much worse in darker lighting. I was in the Chicago Theater last weekend, and couldn't get one non-blurry shot of the architecture from inside.

Am I doomed to have blurry or grainy pictures in darker light with this camera?

 

My camera has the same problem. It's probably a setting on your camera that's altering how long the shutter remains open when taking a picture.

Most digital cameras have a "night" mode on them, check that it's not in night mode.

 

You really should upload a pic somewhere so we can look at the EXIF information.

If picture are blurry due to motion blur, make shutter speed as high as possible:
1) Use the largest Aperture (smallest F number) if this can be set.
Note many cameras have a smaller aperture when you zoom.
2) User highest tolerable ISO
3) Stabilize the camera manually (usually supporting yourself against anything)

If it's grain/color noise:
1) Turn off digital stabilzation (which you've done)
2) Lower ISO
3) Do not use digital zoom

For decent night shots without a tripod or the like, you want any/all of:
1) High isos with reasonable noise
2) Optical stabilization
3) large Aperture/small 'F' numbers.

 

and, it should. Your camera has one of the common P&S "image stabilization" systems that consists of high ISO and fast shutter speed (as described in the above link).

I assume you are not using the flash indoor at Chicago Theater, right? You have to hold it very still to take indoor pics like that without flash. If you are able to take those shots easier with a different camera, it may be a question of aperture and as said, posting a pic with EXIF info can help us identify that.

Please a post a pic taken straight from the camera?