Help with Canon SD1000 - Pictures become blurry if objects are moving

[helloworld]

Hi there, I just got my SD1000 a few days ago and used it to take pictures of my kitty which moves a lot and moves fast. It seems to me when a picture is taken with flash, it comes out okay/in focus, but when I turn off the flash, the picture is all blurry if my kitty moves when I take the picture. Sorry I don't know anything about photography. I wonder if it is something related to the ISO setting? I have tried changing some settings on the camera but it didn't help.

Any help would be much appreciated!

 

[Socrates]

Hi there, I just got my SD1000 a few days ago and used it to take pictures of my kitty which moves a lot and moves fast. It seems to me when a picture is taken with flash, it comes out okay/in focus, but when I turn off the flash, the picture is all blurry if my kitty moves when I take the picture. Sorry I don't know anything about photography. I wonder if it is something related to the ISO setting? I have tried changing some settings on the camera but it didn't help.

Any help would be much appreciated!

You'll probably need one of the Canonites here to give you detailed assistance but, in the meantime, post back with the settings on the camera. My guess is that you should configure for auto-ISO but I'm a Nikon guy and I don't know how it's done with Canon.

 

[TheOtherBob]

As an initial question, what "mode" is the camera set on? Your camera does not (I don't think) have aperture priority, so you basically need to find a mode that offers a low aperture number (and possibly a high ISO). Maybe try "Night Snapshot" or "Indoor" if it has those? Basically you have to keep playing with modes until you get one that seems to work. (To the extent you can see EXIF data afterwards, it's good if the aperture number is low.)

If you can contol ISO on top of that, you want ISO to be as high as possible without ruining the picture -- try 1600 to start. If that looks ok, great -- but it will probably look "noisy" or "grainy." If so, lower the ISO until you get a decent picture.

And if all else fails, use flash. My cat loves the flash, for some reason -- but he's an odd duck.

 

[Mystwalker]

Doesn't the SD1000 have a "sports mode"? This may help.

I'm thinking the flash is "freezing the moment" so your picture does not have that blur.

Without flash, you need to increase shutter speed - not sure if you can do that with SD1000. Do not think I can do that with my wife's SD8xx (forgot which one). I had similar problem with taking pictures of daughter who run from room to room. This was primary reason I upgrade to DSLR.

 

[ghpham]

If your camera looks anything like this:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canonsd1100is/page2.asp

I think you will have a problem taking a picture of your cat without flash. Seems like there is no "mode" to play with except changing your ISO. You can try increasing the ISO to the maximum which would increase the shutter speed and see if that help.