see my work at http://freeartisticphoto.com

Not that there aren’t enough pictures out there, but let’s face it, most of them are horrible. So it falls on us to correct the wrongs and balance those out with beautiful images. Welcome to the tribe!

Point and shoot cameras are perfectly fine, and even preferable in many circumstances. You don’t have to have a high-end professional camera to take stunning images. Of the 6-7 cameras I’ve owned in my life time, only one of them has been a SLR. In fact, my first proper camera was a plastic, fixed focus, completely battery-free, 35mm film camera that cost about 8 dollars. My brother and myself had matching models in different colours, and we used the sprokets off those, learning almost everything we know about photography in the process.

Compared to that one, even the puniest of the modern digital cameras is a space shuttle, so I’m sure you’ll do fine with your experiments.

I do hope to see you around more often, and while this is always an open invitation to all my readers, you get special treatment for saying nice things about my sliding graphic — so, if there’s anything you need to know more about during your explorations, or any particular photographic conundrum that needs solving, or if you just want to say hello, feel free to send me a message through my contact page or through the comments here. I’m always happy to help, and see people’s progress.

Thanks for dropping by, and keep in touch,

Samir

And, I like the sliding graphic,lol.

Sorry for the long silence. I’m on holiday and haven’t been keeping up with the site as often as I would like.

Now on to your specific problem. The problems of blurring are just part of the challenge of photography, but understanding a bit more of the technical side of your camera and some of its features can usually reduce these issues.

The longer your camera shutter remains open, the more likely you are to get a blurred image, either because your subject moves, or because your hand shakes. In normal lighting, a exposure of up to 1/30th or 1/60th of a second will usually get rid of the effects of hand shake. Anything longer can be problematic, so the aim in low-light and natural-light photography is to reduce the exposure time as much as practically possible while still getting a good image, or to hold the camera steady enough to get a clear shot from a long exposure. Holding the camera steady either involves using a tripod, or using some other tricks to get a steady shot.

One way many cameras deal with low light is to change something called the ISO setting. This is a throwback to film technology where different speeds of film allowed for different exposure needs in the same lighting conditions. While ISO 100 or ISO 200 were the normal film speeds, larger ISO speeds allowed for faster exposures. Digital cameras use a similar effect where larger ISO settings allow quicker exposures but at the cost of noisier images.

The good news for you is that the Fujifilm Finepix S9000 is a very capable camera, allowing some very high ISO settings. I haven’t had a chance to study its features in detail, but a quick online search reveals many features that could solve your problem. One option is to increase the ISO setting manually to something higher like 400 or 800 for indoor shots. Keep in mind that this will produce noisy images, but often noisy images are much better than blurred ones. I believe your camera also has a natural light and an anti-blur program setting. I suggest you try enabling these through the menu and try out their effect. In theory the camera should automatically adjust ISO settings and other exposure settings to reduce your blurring problem.

That’s all I have for now. Once I’m back from my trip I’ll look into the S9000 further and let you know if it has any other tricks up its sleeve that you can use. In the meanwhile, hope these tips were useful. Let me know how your experiments go.

Best of luck,

Samir

As far as Flora is concerned, what can I say … perhaps you can look at her as a a good friend’s slightly irritating significant other. Glad you’re getting used to her, and hope to see you around often.