Why are my photos unclear?

[kimcop]

I have a 6.0 mega pixel camera with 3X optical lens.
I'm not a photographer but I just want clear pictures of people/scenery.
A lot of my pictures come out unclear. Especially in the dark or if the object is far away.

What can I do?

 

[Wozza]

Sounds like you, my friend need a tripod.

When you take pictures and it is dark, it takes longer to take a picture. If you move the camera in this time, everything blurs.

Also when you take a shot thats zoomed in movement becomes exaggerated meaning its harder to keep the camera still. Also make sure you are not using 'digital zoom' which is when the camera goes anything past 3x zoom.

 

[christopher walrath]

Also, in the dark there is less light on the subject for the focusing sensors to pick up on so the focus might be off. And with distance objects, if near the horizon haze could be throwing the focus off. And, yes, a tripod never hurts. One more suggestion. How is your eyesight? My focus was terrible for a couple of years until I got my first pair of eyeglasses. Made a huge difference. Just a stray thought. I get those.

 

[JustAnEngineer]

I carefully adjusted the viewfinder diopter so that what looks in focus to me is actually in focus for the sensor.

 

[Battou]

Make sure you hold the shutter relese button untill the AF has locked, other wise it will guess....and they are not the best guessers. This is actually the most predominate occurance of digi cam misfocus, many just don't realize that auto focus has is not entirely auto. Some one has to tell it what to focus on and wait untill it has done so.