Why does my digital camera take blurry pictures?

Question

i have a cannon powershot sd600, i've had it for about a year and a half. it takes good pictures during the day time, and with the flash on, but when i go to concerts, take pictures at night, or with the flash off, the picture often comes out blurry. i heard there was a way to correct this problem, by doing something with the cameras settings, but i have no idea how. can anyone help?

Answer 1

It is because in low light conditions such as the ones you have named the camera needs longer to take a photo, much like a longer shutter speed on a film camera. To avoid blurry images there are many things you can do.

One is not to zoom in too much (this may be hard to avoid at concerts, but will make any blur effect worse).

Another is to use a tripod to mount the camera on, it my sound drastic, but all professional photographers use this method to avoid camera shake, and failing that use a wall or chair to rest the camera on to prevent movement.

Another is to try to avoid using the camera screen as a view finder. I seem to recall that the SD600 has a dedicated view finder for framing your shots. Try to use this as holding the camera at arms length will almost certainly increase the blur of the photo, its yet another thing photographers do to avoid camera shake.

Hope these hand hints help.