Closeup object is blurry but background is clear

[Indiacrystals]

I just started my business over a year now. Things have sky rocketed but I'm trying to shoot a close up of this pendulum but it keeps getting the background and the pendulum comes out blurry. I use a Nikon p530 with macro closeup. I've changed my ISO setting to several different settings still the same thing. Then I read about getting a new lens for closeup photos? What I'am I doing wrong here.

 

[tirediron]

Is your business photography or pendulums? It looks like you're either inside the focusing range of the camera, or, more likely, if you're in macro mode, then it's focusing on something else. Do you have the ability to change the point of focus on this camera?

 

[SnappingShark]

up your shutter speed, add lighting, focus on the pendulum manually while it's static and then shoot.

 

[Indiacrystals]

I figured that might be part of the problem, I took a picture of one of my other products during the middle of the day here in Florida and they seemed to turn out fine. I took it later in the day so the timing must be part of the problem also

up your shutter speed, add lighting, focus on the pendulum manually while it's static and then shoot.

 

[astroNikon]

Essentially, as BrightByNature is alluding to, I think you are using the focusing system in Auto to focus.

The focusing system is not instantaneous and the model apparently has a slow auto focus speed and some shutter lag which ranges from 0.3 seconds to 1.3 seconds. So a pendulum would have to be timed with focus pre-set.
more info - has lag information ==> Nikon's Coolpix P600 is a telescope dressed up like a point-and-shoot

So it was probably focusing on something distant (as the pendulum wasn't there) before it actually took the photo as you have to figure out how to time it.

So if you focus manually on a still pendulum, and keep the focus on manual, then you can time the photo to shoot the pendulum in focus in any part of it's swing, or a slightly slower shutter speed to show some movement.

 

[snowbear]

Better put a bucket beside the computer for that first shot - all the water is gonna leak out of the left side.

 

[wfooshee]

Was the pendulum static or swinging in that picture? If static, then you simply didn't focus on it. Maybe it's too close? If it was swinging, then the camera focused on what it could see when you pressed the shutter, which was the tall reeds, and the pendulum swung into the picture afterwards and the shutter clicked. Point-and-shoot cameras are notorious for "think time:" you press the button and they go through all their motions of finding focus before actually tripping the shutter.

If you can turn off auto-focus and focus on that manually using the viewscreen, you'll get the shot you're after.

It may be motion blur you're seeing, not out of focus. 1/40th is not a fast shutter speed when something is that close to the lens.

 

[dennybeall]

Anytime you're shooting something up close it's best to use Manual Focus, especially if the object is moving even a little. Auto Focus will find something else to focus on too easily. Although in that first shot since everything all the way to the far distance is in focus I'd say you were inside the minimum focus distance of the lens.