Does the local lighting affect the sharpness of a photo?

[G41.25]

I'm what I might call a semi-serious amateur, I have some pro kit (lighting, tents etc) but not such a pro camera (Fuji S9600). In addition to personal photography, I also do product photography for my own design work - catalogues, brochures, web sites etc.

A problem that I appear to notice increasingly, is that shooting indoors under studio lights tends to give me 'furry' images whereas shooting the same products outdoors gives me nice sharp images. I always shoot at the lowest ISO I can (80) and use auto focus. Invariably, the indoor shots always tend to turn out slightly dark but can this 'darkness' throw off the auto-focus or affect the sharpness of the shot?

I do have a light meter, but the values it tells me to dial into my camera tend to be outside of the range of the camera, so I tend to use a trial and error method by taking repeated shots and looking at the histogram and blinkies to ensure nothing's burning out.

Any suggestions?

 

[KmH]

It's quite possible you're getting 'camera shake' indoors from insufficient shutter speed.

The amount of light doesn't have any effect on sharpness directly, but it can effect how well your camera auto focuses.

Auto focus generally relies on there being good contrast in a scene, particularly between the subject and the background.

For product photography I don't trust AF and use manual focus (set with a focus target) instead. LensAlign | LensAlign Lite Focus Calibration System | LA-LAL

 

[G41.25]

"'camera shake' indoors from insufficient shutter speed."
I'm using a shutter release cable with the camera tripod-mounted, and sometimes I do use a longer exposure to achieve the required amount of 'brightness'. I'm more tempted to think it's the focus itself, but on a small LCD display or EVF, it's a little difficult to tell if it's in focus or not! I'll look into your recommendation of focus targets.

Thanks