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Old 02-08-2008, 11:50 AM
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snapdragon snapdragon is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RedZeppelin View Post
I have a Sony DSC-H2 camera. I use it primarily to take pictures of my two-year-old daughter. Unfortunately I absolutely can not get the camera to focus properly when I zoom

You can see that the chair behind her is perfectly focused, but she's blurry, and she wasn't moving.

I use flexible spot focusing set on monitor mode, and I'm always careful to put the focusing dot on something with high contrast such as an eye. And I always take my time with shot, waiting several seconds to let the camera try to focus.

But no matter what I do all my zoomed shots come out like the above, and it's driving me crazy.

I keep my camera in shutter priority mode at 160 because my daughter is always in motion and I want to cut down on the blur. I let the camera choose the aperture.

I always use flash.

Can anyone offer any suggestions? I'm about ready to give up and put my camera back in full auto mode like a rookie, that that's wasting a pretty good camera.

Thanks.
I may be wrong about this ,as I only know my camera & I use multi Mode , and I think that is the same as your ( flexible spot focusing ) , and I find that in that mode anything that is at that same distance will be in focus and everything else is out of focus . the low f # makes it even more so , as I use this mode for my water droplets . It looks to me like your little one is sunk into a nice soft sofa making it the same distance as her eyes so that is why it is in focus . try center weight . a heigher shutter speed 250 for kids on the go will also help ,at 160 she may have moved a tad ,with the focus on something as small as her eye and a sofa at the same distance I think it would be hard to keep the focus where you want it .If your camera has sports mode , try that and compare your results , I find that if you check the auto modes it gives you a starting point as to what your settings should be ,and then you can tweek them in manual . an old friend gave me that advice when i first started and i still use it ,with good results . hope this helps .
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