Help with low light pictures

[coyotebandit]

I have a Olympus C-750 and use it for taking pictures from my tree stand. This has been working ok, except for early morning, and later in the evening. It seems to hold the shutter open to long and makes the pictures blury. Here are some examples.

This appears to be especially bad when the deer are walking, the deer walks out of the frame before the shutter closes. Are there manual setting that will help with this?

Thanks

CB

 

[coyotebandit]

Here is another example. When the lighting is better, the pictures turn out fine.

 

[Lan-Lord]

CB you are bumping up against the CCD curse for digicams!! I struggled with this very issue so many times the last couple of years. I narrowed the options down to 2.

1.) Bump the ISO up, yeah there will be noise, but it is better than blurry pics.

2.) Set your cam on shutter priority at a setting no slower than 1/120th sec. Your pics will come out dark, but with a little photoshop help you can salvage them to some degree.

Personally I choose option 2.

 

[RtWill78]

I too have a C-750, and I use the Fast motion Preset and it works ok, it is in fact the same thing as bumping up the Shutter speed and lan lord suggested. I love the camera but they all their issues. I have thought about using a camcorder mount in my tree so I can get clear zoom shots because you really have to be steady then too. This would also slove your blurry pic problem.
RT

 

[coyotebandit]

Thanks for the tips guys, some pics do turn out ok, like this one, hopefully I'll get something a little bigger next time.

 

[RtWill78]

I really like the camera too, it does take great pics. That is the camera OhioBowhunter uses and took all of those great pics last season from stand with. He without his knowledge influenced our buying that camera.
RT

 

[Lan-Lord]

actually I will ammend my above guideline of 1/125th shutter speed. It looks like you pulled off a smooth one at 1/60th sec. Were you bracing the cam against something (tree, leg, body)?

 

[Lan-Lord]

Here are the stats on the blurry one. 1/3rd of a sec.

 

[coyotebandit]

lan-lord,

Yep, I was leaning against a tree in my stand. I guess auto mode doesn't work too well from a stand. I guess I'm really going to have to learn how to take good pictures with manual settings. Practice, practice...I need more practice.

Thanks

CB

 

['Ike' @ HM]

I have the same camera and love it.....I have the same problems and learned a few tricks today. One, hold really steady

and two, use the 'sports mode'........They say this will help in some of those situations...........

 

[RtWill78]

Yeah, the sports mode is what I meant by Fast Shutter mode above.... oops. Any way, I agree with Ike it does help. I have thought above getting a camera tree mount (like the one Gorilla makes) for the C-750 and then use it with either the remote or just swing it over and use it.
RT