Focus tricks for Camedia C-740

[Lara]

Hey everyone. I am trying to use my Camedia C-740 to take bird pictures and I am having trouble focusing and coming back with blurry pictures more often than not(!)

Does anyone have any tricks for reliable focusing of this camera? I have been trying to focus on a bottle about 5 meters away with full optical zoom while sitting here and haven't been able to yet. I've tried turning on the autofocus (AF) fulltime, and also doing this by depressing the shutter button until the green focus light comes on and then taking the picture, but with no luck. I've tried both iESP and SPOT focus methods too. Is there some unique combination of settings I should use? I'm currently at HQ 2048 x 1536.

Thanks a bunch for any help!
Lara

[Matt_C]

I'm not sure you would be able to get a good focus at 5 metres with full optical zoom. That might be a little too close.

I have the C750 which I presume is about the same. I use spot focus almost all of the time and I have experienced similar problems to yourself especially indoors and low light situations. Even outdoors with good lighting can produce problems. I always use the LCD screen and half depress the shutter release button and check on the screen that I have a good focus. If I'm struggling I will try and pick something a bit more contrasty the same distance away, half depressing and then moving back to the subject. If you do it this way it might be worth getting an exposure lock first on the subject.

If I'm still struggling then I switch to manual focus. On the C750 to goto manual focus you hold down the OK button on the back for a few seconds for the manual focus scale to appear. When it appears you'll still be in auto focus. (Look at the bottom of the scale) Just press left once to switch to manual and then you can move the distance scale up and down to your hearts content and focus on just about anything. Far away objects will almost always be the infinity distance at the top of the scale.

You could speed things up a little by setting up a my mode setting for manual focus with everything ready to go.

Hope this helps in some way. I'm no expert but these are the techniques I use with the C750.

Good luck

Matt

[Life]

Hi Lara,

I, too, am a new c-750 owner.

Yet - did you verify the shutter speed was set to short time like 1/80 to 1/100 sec?

the blurr may come not as a result of focus problems, but due to the fact that the object you try to take a picture of is moving, or - if the zoom is used - your hands are not stable.


I never experienced focus problem with the almost 1500 pictures I took till now.

I would take the camera to a lab for testing if you could not overcome your problem by now.

Good luck.

Life