Why blurry pics from Olympus Stylus S410

[htkchen]

Hey guys,

A friend of mine purchased an Olympus Stylus S410 about a month ago. She noticed that most of the pics she took were quite blurry at the 100% magnification level in Photoshop. The story is she left the new camera in its original package in her car before going to eat for an hour. She lives in the valley in So. Cal, where it was around 105 F outside. I find it hard to believe that the temperature caused the image stabilizing chip (if any) of a brand new cam in its box to go bad, but is that possible?

Now when she takes pics with the cam on a flat surface, the pics come out quite crisp. It's just when she's holding it in her hands. She has tried her best to keep the cam still when taking pics that way. I'm very curious on why this may be the case as well as anything else she can try to fix it.

Thanks for your help.

Henry

 

[markc]

Wht shutter speed is she using? If the image is sharp when the camera is stable, then the blur is coming from motion. A fast shutter or using flash will help freeze the motion.

 

[Big Mike]

Like Mark said, sounds like the shutter is too slow.

This is either because she is shooting in low light and the camera is setting the shutter so slow...

or she has the camera in shutter priority mode (or manual mode) and has the shutter set too slow.

 

[HogHunter]

I had an Olympus c720 that I sold because it quite often produced out of focus pictures. I don't know what the problem was, but I seem to recall the Olympus website referenced an issue with camera shake. I read the bulletin after I had purchased my D300 and didn't pay much attention to it.

Check out their site and read it for yourself.

http://www.olympusamerica.com/files/CameraShake.doc

 

[htkchen]

I'm not sure if she can adjust the shutter speed on this thing, it seems to be a point and shoot type camera. I know the slowest it can go is 1/2 sec. She's probably shooting on automatic mode. But it's possible that she's not holding it steady enough or that the camera is defected. I'll tell her about the suggestions you guys gave me. Thanks a lot for your help!

 

[markc]

If the image is sharp when the camera is sitting on something solid, there isn't anything wrong with the camera. Most point-and-shoot cameras need a lot of light because of the cheap zoom lenses they use. Is she using flash? It can help even in daylight.