I,m confused

[smudger888]

Got a new camera for our safari holiday, went out yesterday to take some test shots and I was a bit dissapointed in the results. I took the photos in AUTO mode but they just don,t appear sharp enough for me, if I use P mode I can alter the sharpness as it cannot be changed in Auto mode.
I've not had chance to see if shooting in P mode has made a difference so I,m asking for advice, should I just stick with auto mode or am I ok using P mode ?
I am new to all of this so I don,t feel confident using the other modes yet as I do not understand them.
Is P mode the same as auto, but with P mode you can make certain adjustments that you cannot in auto mode.
Any comments would be most helpful

[Matt_C]

Need a bit more info to be able to help. Such as what model camera, were you using zoom, what sort of light was available at the time etc etc. I sample shot posted in your gallery would be very helpful. I'm sure it's just a case of getting to know your camera. Post a sample with problems and I'm sure we can help.

Matt

[smudger888]

Yes I will but I am busy with work this week, think its camera shake, only the ones taken at x10 are blurred, so maybe i should have used a faster shutter speed but that is not an option in auto mode, my camera is a fujifinepix S5500
many thanks phil

[smudger888]

uploaded a photo, titled "artic corsair"

www.bytephoto.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=5817

thats a link if it works

[Medic1210]

I don't think that's motion blur because your shutter speed of 1/125 sec should be more than fast enough for a focal lenght of 35mm. I just think it's one of the limitations of the small sensor in the camera you have. A little post processing should be able to fix that image. Most digital cameras require a bit of post processing to make them look right... especially when viewed at 100% on your monitor.

Mike

[Medic1210]

I took the liberty of downloading your full size image and correcting it a bit using Paint Shop Pro 9. All I did was a very slight Curves adjustment, slight noise reduction, and slight unsharp mask. The Unsharp Mask is what you need to make it look sharper. The settings I used for this image at 100% was Radius- 1.0 Amount- 100 Clipping- 5. Remember that Unsharp Mask (USM) should always be the very last step, and that you should resize your image before applying it if you plan on resizing because each size image will require a slightly different setting for optimal sharpening. If you want a full size image and a smaller one, then you should duplicate the image prior to doing USM. Then do the USM on the full size image and resize the other one, and do USM then.

Anyway, here is the link to the image I corrected.

http://www.bytephoto.com/photopost/s...sort=1&cat=500

Does this look better to you? It may or may not, because the amount of USM you use is based on what you want your image to look like. This setting looked right to me, but you may want a different setting.