Stylus 400 problems

[garman]

I've got a Stylus 400 that seems to hate motion shots. Put it on a tripod and it takes beautiful still pics. But in the hand... (even with a rest) some are great, some are slightly blurred. And if the subject is moving... (like my sons playing ball) they will be blurred! Like the shutter is slow.. ???

There is no action mode that I can find...

It also wants to flash unless in direct sunlight. ?

Is there something I can do? Or is it just me? Is this normal?

Thanks

 

[Lan-Lord]

It sounds like dark situations (inside) the shutter is slowing down too much in order to gather enough light to properly expose the photograph. As a result, if your subject is moving (or if your hand shakes), the photo will be blurred. There are a couple of options.
1.) force the shutter to be faster (faster than ~1/125) on shutter priority mode
2.) use the flash
3.) set the iso value higher


You may be able to try a couple of the above, or you might have to do all 3 in order to get a photo that is bright enough and still freeze the motion. Try to keep the iso at 200 or 100. only go higher if absolutely needed (eg very low light situations)

for outside sunny shots, put the cam on auto and you should be okay (as you mentioned)

 

[garman]

I am obviously digital camera illiterate. I can not find how to increase the shutter speed or set the ISO value higher on my Stylus 400 digital.

Can it be changed on this camera?

 

[Lan-Lord]

Hey garman, I posted assuming that you could tweak some of those settings on your camera.. I looked it up and you cant control any of those settings. About the only thing that I can think of is to use a slave flash for your indoor shots, or turn on lots of lights. Unfortunately your camera likes alot of light, and the way that it tries to gather the light is by slowing down the shutter speed. If you can supplement the amount of light available, (turn on inside lights, or use a slave flash) the cam wont have to leave the shutter open as long.