How do I disappoint the wife :(

[mrodgers]

Hello all, I'm new here. Been looking around....

Here's my problem, with a bit of background. My wife bought a 4x6 printer. I have a bit old of a camera, a Fuji FinePix 2650 2 mp. Bought it as my first digital in 2002.

I did not think that she had bought a camera. Her mom and her went shopping on "Black Friday" and her mom bought this inexpensively advertised camera at Walmart, the Sony DSC-S650.

The wife and I have been talking about getting a new camera after Christmas. Today we were talking and I kind of stuck my foot in my mouth. I stated the old cliche "you get what you pay for" about getting a decent camera. I have my eye on the Canon SD1000, not too badly priced at the moment at under $180.

She's barking about how we can't afford a camera, etc, etc. I have a cheap lawn tractor for cutting grass and plowing snow, which can't plow snow more than 2 feet. I have a cheap tiller that can't till the ground. I have a cheap computer that is a hassle to use. You can get the picture. We're single income with 2 small girls to raise.

So, we're "discussing" and I'm stating how if you don't spend the money, you may as well just not get anything. I don't want an $80 POS, like the tractor, computer, blah, blah, blah......

I was absolutely sure she had not bought me a camera. That's when she handed me my Christmas present and told me to open it. Yup, it's the $89 (I think) Sony DSC-S650 she picked up at Walmart.

How bad can it be? I've been taking pictures with a 5 year old 2 mp Fuji, which takes some pretty good stinkin pictures for what I use it for. So, I've been playing with it (about 75 shots around the house now). The verdict? It takes absolutely HORRIBLE shots! Nearly 75% of them are so blurred, you don't know what the image is. My 2 mp Fuji 2650 is miles better quality than this Sony. When I opened the Sony, I gave the 7 year old the old Fuji. She's having a ball with it and took some nice pictures. So, I went around and took the same picture with the Sony that she did with the Fuji so I could compare them.

My problem is, my wife was so excited to get me a camera. And the fact that we always find out what we get each other, she was so excited because I didn't know. She gave it to me early because my 7 year old has a Christmas program for school later next week.

So......... I'm looking for some advise on how to tell her the camera is a complete POS and waste of money. We probably can't get a decent camera, even a Point-and-shoot job with our financial situation. She was so excited getting me the camera because she knew I wanted one, and because of the fact that she kept the "secret" from me, which is difficult to do when a 4 and a 7 year old know about it, LOL. I'm really dreading telling her what a piece of garbage it is.

Here's a few examples. I had to resize them, but you can still see how horrible the Sony is. 1 shot from the Fuji by my 7 year old, and 3 shots to show how difficult it was with the Sony. Seems to be extremely sensitive to any camera shake when taking a photo. It was all I could do to get the clearest one as clear as it is. I am doing everything I can for pictures to focus correctly, yet I have some of the kids and I couldn't even tell they were my girls by looking at the photos......

Fuji 2650 taken by a 7 year old

Sony S650, very blurry

Sony S650, the best I could do with auto mode

Sony S650, another very blurry

 

[Joves]

Id show her the pictures. I see the Sony is overexposing as well.

 

[Happy Hour]

No offense or anything but daughter that cam and it takes great pics! So I think you might have a setting or 2 off. my daughter took blurry pics till I changed the settings. this is a example from that cam.

 

[DSLR noob]

Oh my, if I were your wife I'd be so upset but it seems you are right............. I don't even know who to root for.

 

[Sideburns]

You know what? I'd cut my losses. Love is more important than an amazing camera...and it should be better than your old one.

Talk to her and tell her you just got worked up about nothing, and you weren't thinking right. Tell her that she did a wonderful job picking out your present and that it was a great surprise.

Save a bit of crack change starting now to buy a nicer camera at a later date...

I'd say just choose your battles. It's not worth it...even if she is understanding, it kind of hurts when your present is "sucky" according to the receiver.

 

[DSLR noob]

You know what? I'd cut my losses. Love is more important than an amazing camera...and it should be better than your old one.

Talk to her and tell her you just got worked up about nothing, and you weren't thinking right. Tell her that she did a wonderful job picking out your present and that it was a great surprise.

Save a bit of crack change starting now to buy a nicer camera at a later date...

I'd say just choose your battles. It's not worth it...even if she is understanding, it kind of hurts when your present is "sucky" according to the receiver.

yeah, say you were wrong and the camera wasn't as bad as you expected it would be. Reading the story, my feelings would be SOOO hurt if I was her. Her feelings are more important than your image quality for another year. Good luck.

 

[mrodgers]

No offense or anything but daughter that cam and it takes great pics! So I think you might have a setting or 2 off. my daughter took blurry pics till I changed the settings. this is a example from that cam.

Quite a lovely picture there. But, that is also outdoors. I need a camera for b-day parties and such, inside since they are all winter birthdays.

Haven't a clue what setting to change. I don't have the knowledge to completely understand ISO and whitebalance and stuff (I do have slight understanding). I've messed around with different stuff and it just puts more noise into the picture.

When the camera is focusing, I can actually see it on the display, focus, then go out of focus and take the picture. Then, the picture is out of focus when viewed on the PC. Perhaps it is defective. I'm going on what I'm seeing in my pictures and comparing that to the reviews online, which none are favorable. My pictures seem to mimic the poor user reviews quite well (DPreview.com's user review)

The problem could simply be the very poor lighting in our small house. We have a huge front window, but it's covered with a large roof on the porch. Also, darker red oak floors with a rust red colored area rug in the middle. Very small kitchen window which is west/south facing that produces very little light. Just took some other pictures in the basement with all the lights on and it produces a bit better, but still less focused than the old Fuji.

Tomorrow, I'll be going outside if I can brave it. Take some test pics of the results of the huge snow storm.

EDIT Just noticed something looking through older pics from the Fuji. Everything is taken in ISO 100. That camera has no manual settings, and it appears it is ISO 100 only. With the Sony, in auto mode, I see the camera is setting it at ISO 360 for the majority. I will have to test further and manually set it lower to see what happens. We'll see tomorrow. I very slightly know what the ISO numbers mean.

 

[Happy Hour]

Ok well If you still dont believe that that camera can take good pictures here's one from a dark dark bar. I use this camera alot for quick point and shoot pics. Not to mention my 11 year old can use it and still get great pics.read the owners manual it doesnt take much to adjust it.If you go to best buy or cc pick up any camera in there they will all take crappy pics, because most people mess with the settings or the factory settings are not good for the lighting in there. It sounds like no matter what new camera you get weather it's $100 or a $1,000 you will need to do some kind of adjusting to get good pics in any lighting.

 

[Happy Hour]

this site will give you a great start on what does what on your camera. It's for cannon's but same concept.

http://web.canon.jp/imaging/enjoydslr/part2/2Ab.html

now if you go on you tube type in sony s 650 you will get 22 videos on how to use your exact camera. also all the options it has also. the cyber shot is one camera that I do push. they are great point and shoot cameras! I own a total of 3 of them i have the dsc p200 the s650 & dsc t 70 all which I can say kill the nikon point & shoot 9which has the worst lcd screen on the market. and also the canon who my brother owns and we had taken the same pics side by side and my cyber shot looks way way better than his did. Your wife got more than what she paid for. The only thing I can say bad is that Sony's customer service SUCKS. so get a warranty on it. best of luck 2 ya. Any ?'s on the cam feel free to e-mail me.

 

[mrodgers]

Happy Hour, I appreciate the sample pics there. That does look like quite a low light location.

I have a few test pics I took. I put my old camera on the basement floor and changed some settings. Basically, just changed the ISO setting and the pics came out strange. As far as I understand, ISO determines the amount of exposure or light the camera receives? I set at ISO 100, 200, and 400, and took shots at full wide angle and full zoom from chest height with flash. All other settings are on Auto. The ISO 200 shot came out the darkest. Wondering if there is a problem with the camera on that. This was repeated a second time. Is that because of the full zoom? Because, my test shots at full wide did not result this way.....

ISO 100
ISO 200
ISO 400

I also tried focusing on a small kid's toy that they left laying on the floor. I am at the computer about 10 feet away. I have a shot from my Fuji 2mp and the Sony. The Fuji looks like crap too, but not nearly what the Sony resulted with. The Sony was set at ISO 100, since that is what the Fuji can do.

Fuji toy
Sony toy

A bit more with the kid's toy (good thing I didn't yell at them for picking them up, I'd have nothing to focus on for test picture, LOL). For this one, I set the focus at the very far wall, around 25-30 feet away. This time, it is much closer to being in focus. I did 2 shots, set at ISO 200 and the 2nd set at auto, which gave me the same pic and the same ISO level.

Focus set far away

I appreciate the opinions of these. All other settings are at auto/default. I haven't played with the EV values as I'm not sure what they do. I just want to be sure it is me and not the camera since I can't seem to get a nice photograph, certainly not as nice as Happy Hour's postings look.

Thanks for the replies to all. It's much appreciated.

Edit: And, as I typed this and messed around with the camera, you posted again. I'll check out the site and search the youtube as you've said. I never thought to look for youtube videos specifically for the Sony cameras.

 

[monkeykoder]

Sounds like the problem you were having with the blurry pictures is slow shutter speed combined with camera or subject moving during the picture. I used to think my first point and shoot was a piece of crap too after convincing my dad to get me a dSLR I sat back and actually learned how to use the point and shoot and got it to take the pictures I wanted it to take in the way I wanted it to take them (it was a little bit harder because it had NO manual controls) but I got my pictures. This hand-me-down 2mp camera takes a better picture for me now that I know how to use it than my dad takes with his D70. It is all about knowing your camera and knowing it's limitations and knowing how to work around them.

 

[Happy Hour]

just looking threw my setings 4 the cyber shot. These setting almost never get touched, so it works well with 90% of pics i take with it.
-2ev
focus- multi af
Metering mode - Center
white bal- I leave it on auto but if im in a darker room I set it 2 the light bulb
iso - 400

P. quality - Fine
Try these settings and c if it looks better. I cannot believe how bad those pics look. Definatly not the camera. Not one of my 3 point & shoot cams ever take a pic that bad.

 

[Josh66]

I'm not familiar with that camera, so I don't know if this applies or not...

Are you sure that you're not covering up the AF assist lamp with your finger?
On some cameras that I've owned, the AF assist lamp was positioned in the exact spot one of my fingers would want to rest, I had to make a conscious effort to hold the camera just right.

Set it on your desk & take a picture with the timer & see it it looks good, just to eliminate the possibility that you could be covering something up, and to eliminate movement. If it still looks like crap I would start to suspect the camera, or it's settings. At least you would know for sure that it wasn't you though.

 

[chris]

The photos that you have posted are all taken at close range. The minimum focusing distance for the Sony DSC-S650 is quoted as 0.5m (about 19"). If the subject is closer than this then it will be blurred. Also, even if the subject is just farther away than 0.5m the depth of field will be very shallow and again little of the photo will be in focus. Your older camera may be capable of focusing closer than the Sony can.

To properly check out the camera take some photos at 2m to 3m range (6ft to 10ft) and see how those come out.

 

[Happy Hour]

another thing I just thought of is, are just snapping away? With that camera you hold the button half way down until the green light stops flashing then your camera has adjusted itself and is ready to snap away. I forgot about that. That camera does take a sec 2 focus. So try and hold the snap button half way down until you see the green light stop flashing and hold solid that will tell you that the camera is ready to shoot then press the button all the way down. I was out this morning and grabbed that cam and was snapping away to see if I could get the same results you were, and it only happened when I would just snap away without giving it a chance to focus. another thing you can do is download a free program called picasa 9do a google search 4 it. this is a very easy to use photo adjusting program. and also organizes you pics on your cpu. with this program, some of the worst pics I have have been saved with it. i hope you can get the hang of that camera. Because for its price range it is a great point & shoot. I do agree that older cameras are easier to use but you can fet way better results with any 7mega pixels than with any 2 mega pixel cam