Olympus SP-550UZ

[Sylvia]

Hello,
Has anybody got this Olympus SP-550UZ camera?
It takes great pictures as long as the subject doesn't move a finger, otherwise it leaves a motion trail. See the umbrella below:

I wrote to Olympus about that problem, and here's their answer:

The camera in auto will not go above 400 ISO, so it will usually have a slower shutter speed. Using the sports scene mode or manually setting the ISO higher in P mode will give better shutter speeds.

I take a lot of pictures and am no expert with shutter speed, F-stop and such. I've almost always use my cameras on automatic and never had this kind of problem before.
What general settings would you recommend so I don't have to adjust for every single picture???
Thanks for your suggestions.
Sylvia

[photofun]

Sylvia, I don't have the same camera as you do but I did have the same problem. I had thought that there was enough light to take a picture so I wouldn't use my flash. When I started using the flash I quit having the motion blur. If you don't want to use the flash then you get into have to make more adjustments with the iso, aperature, and shutter speeds. If you do use the camera in P mode and set the iso higher than 400 you may be disappointed with more noise. The easiest solution is to use the flash more. I hope this helps and good luck.

[Sylvia]

Thanks very much for the suggestion, Photofun, I'll certainly try it!!!
Sylvia

[smorgret]

Sylvia, you can set the camera up in shutter priority by switching to the top knob from Auto to S for shutter priority. Then set the shutter to 1/60th of a second or faster, and the camera will take care of the rest. The faster the shutter speed, the less blurring you will get. That shutter speed is reasonable until things start moving fast.