Need some help on camera settings please!

[AndyH]

Why do my pictures not look crisp and sharp. Here is a picture of my son I took outside. Settings I used were (f/3.2, 1/80sec., iso 400) and camera was in auto. What settings should be different to make the pic look better?

1.

Here I cropped that photo and tried to enhance with elements 6 but it still looks noisy to me.

2.

 

[swmocity]

take the camera off of auto...try the aperture mode...lower the iso

 

[ANDS!]

What camera and lens we got going on here?

 

[AndyH]

It's a Sony Cybershot DSC-H50.

 

[maulrat]

Hmm, I would hate to be the first to say it but... try buying yourself a DSLR. It'll make a world of difference. In the mean time, I would suggest using the zoom as least as possible. My personal experience with point and shoot cameras is that I get much better detail when not zooming my photos. I am not sure if you were zooming in on this particular photo but I think you may be.

Just my 2bit suggestions

 

[Brian L]

I would say program mode if there is one. Lower the iso to its lowest. Make sure digital zoom is turned off in the camera menu too. Digital zoom is bad. But overall the picture is nice. Take it again with lower iso. Then post it back up here let us nit pick at it then print it out or just save it in your photos on your computer...

 

[tirediron]

There are a number of factors involved here. Buying an SLR will not solve the problem; P&S cameras can take tack-sharp images, and you'd be hard-pressed to know what camera it was taken with. The main problem with this image is that the point of focus is actually the front of the ball in the child's hands, not the child's face. The large aperture contributes to a shallow DoF with the result that DoF in this case is only fractions of an inch. There's a slight under-exposure, which, combined with a [relatively] high ISO is producing excess noise.

What to do about it? Watch your point of focus, and be aware of the limitations of your camera. In this case, I suspect it was too late in the day to get the image you wanted.

 

[andrew99]

What tirediron said. Also, a contrast boost would help a lot... I've never used elements, but I'm sure you can adjust the contrast, or better yet use the curves command if it is available in that program.

 

[AndyH]

thanks for the suggestions! I will try program mode with iso 80. How do I control the point of focus? When I press the shutter button halfway to focus, I see several green brackets. Is that what the camera is focusing on? Thanks!

 

[ANDS!]

thanks for the suggestions! I will try program mode with iso 80. How do I control the point of focus? When I press the shutter button halfway to focus, I see several green brackets. Is that what the camera is focusing on? Thanks!

If you see several green squares, the camera is making a decision based on the colors in the scene on what you are shooting, and then determining, based on the previous calculation, what the focus is. It's best - if it allows you - to choose your focus point manually as a computer (which is all a computer is) can be confused.

What I would do, is try to take some shoots in situations where its HARD to screw up exposure (so that you can eliminate one area for error) and then work your way up from there.

And sure, buying a dSLR wont just make you good - but it would eliminate alot of the "problems" people with P&S's have.

 

[Early]

1/80th of a sec isn't particularly fast for many people, especially with teles, so it could be camera shake. It's also hard to see if you were in focus since there's not much foreground showing.

 

[ANDS!]

Holy hell, if someone can't hold still for 1/80th of a second, something wrong is going on - and you don't even have to hold still, just have your movements be SLOWER than 1/80th of a second. But I don't think thats whats going on here. Photo is definitely soft, but its not blurry.

 

[AndyH]

I checked my auto focus settings and it has either single or monitor under af mode. I guess I should check my manual as to what those do. I think my camera also has manual focus.

 

[Early]

thanks for the suggestions! I will try program mode with iso 80. How do I control the point of focus? When I press the shutter button halfway to focus, I see several green brackets. Is that what the camera is focusing on? Thanks!

I believe on your camera, you have to lightly press the shutter when what you want to focus on shows a red square. That will lock the focus in case you want to re-compose for the shot. You'll have to read the manual on that.
ISO 80 will give you an even slower shutter speed, just in case it is camera shake that causing the softness. I wouldn't rule that out regardless of what Ands says. Your camera's long end goes to over 400 mm focal length, which is pretty long, and you never said what focal length you shot the pic at.

Ands, if it looks like I'm talking at you, sorry! I'm just saving space.

 

[AndyH]

ok, I checked and the focal length was 16mm