Overexposure and Blurriness

Mike Clark · Jul 28, 2005

I use a Fuji FinePix S7000, and would consider myself to be a novice photographer. The two main problems I am experiencing is with overexposure and blurriness. In normal light situations, if I do not use a flash, the image is blurry. However, if I turn the flash up, the image is overexposed. Is there a quick way, without putting some kind of filter over the flash, of remedying this problem?

Big Mike · Jul 28, 2005

Welcome to the forum.

Can you post an example? That might help diagnose the problem.

When you say 'normal light situations' do you mean indoors? Outdoors?
Indoor lighting is often dark in terms of photography.

What we need to know is the shutter speed of you blurry photos? If the shutter speed is too slow, the photos will be blurry because of the small movements that occur when holding the camera in your hands. With a 35mm SLR, the rule of thumb is that you want the shutter speed number to be greater than the focal length of the lens. I don't know how that relates to your S7000 but the point is that the longer the lens, the faster the exposure has to be...to avoid blurriness from camera shake.

About the overexposed flash photos. That could be lots of things. It could be that the lighting is very flat looking because the flash is quite close to the lens, the solution would be to use an accessory flash that is farther away from the lens. It could be that your camera just meters flash photos a little brighter than you want it to. Can you set flash exposure compensation? If so, bump it down a notch or two.

Mike Clark · Jul 29, 2005

Totally new to TPF! If my images are on a USB drive, how do I post them here?

Big Mike · Jul 29, 2005

Start HERE

Mike Clark · Jul 29, 2005

Above is a picture I took in my office that is too bright (had the flash on), the one on the left is blurry (had the flash off). The first isn't so bad, I just wish there was less contrast! Also, on most digital cameras, how would I adjust the shutter speed?

Big Mike · Jul 29, 2005

Well, from what I can see...it does look like camera shake on in the 2nd one...although there seems to be quite a lot of it...maybe less coffee

The first one is tough...you have some bright objects facing the camera/flash and lots of dark in the rest of the shot. Less flash exposure would probably help. Check your manual to see if you can dial down the flash exposure compensation. This is also a situation where having the flash farther away from the lens would help alot...but a small built-in flash can't really do that.

As for shutter speed...some entry level cameras won't let you adjust it on your own. IF there is a sports mode (or action mode) that would give some precedence to faster shutter speed. You might have a shutter priority mode, which would let you pick a shutter speed and the camera would pick the most appropriate aperture to get a good exposure (if it could).