Any photo/camera experts out there?

k0nstantine

This might sound like a silly question, but do you just point and click, or half press the shutter button and then click?
The reason i ask is that my parent's have had the same problem as you with a camera of mine which has always worked great for me and produced some amazing pictures. Turned out they just point and click, rather than half pressing the shutter button which allows the camera to focus properly.

gemmaj

k0nstantine, good idea but I half press already I'm afraid.

Sambucus_Nigra

If you can't post the photos in question - get out into the garden and take some and post them on flickr - do some the way you used to take them and some the way you are taking them now. Just so that you can we can see the difference. And put the settings [f stop, shutter speed, ISO] of each so that we can see what's going wrong.

Also, the under or overexposing points to spot metering; if you choose matrix metering it will meter for the whole pic not just one spot which might be the center spot or might be one off centre depending on the settings.

Some of my best cameras are the cheaper end - I bought a camera for work £50 in T**** and it does the most fantastic 2 or 3 photo panoramas and stitches them together in camera - so I now take it on hols for those ultra wide images. Wonderful.

k0nstantine

Do you use the anti blur mode on your cameras?

If you're not using the flash, do you use a tripod to steady the camera, as if not this could be the main culprit for the blurry photographs.

Also, do you use auto focus, or is the focus set to certain settings?
For example, do you set it to portrait for people, or landscape for landscapes?