Beginner needs basic help! Photos are blury :(, Help Very frustated!

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4hotography

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Hi guys i hope somebody can help me. I have a Sony A380 (beginners camera they say), with a standard lens. I have taken some great photos with it however most of my photos if their indoors come out very horrible and blury.

Today i was taking some photos... indoors, the lighting was good, however my photos still come out very wrong. Out of 480 pictures over 400 pictures came out very blury and distorted.

Steady-shot is on, my hands were very still, flash was off as i like photos without flash - natural colour, tried different iso settings. I sometimes zoomed in with the lens and had tried different settings but to no avail. I also used the auto setting but nothing was working.. i was really frustrated.

Below are some examples which i took today, very dissapointed.






The pictures below show movement, when people are clapping or moving it just ruins the entire photo.







All the pictures i have taken outside with natural light have come out very good as i expected. The picture below wasnt outside but had enough lighting, the focus on the gentleman on the right is good, but the child moving away on the bottom right is blurred. How can i prevent this from happening all the time?




Below is a reasonably good picture ive taken.




I noticed the picture quality is only determined by the amount of lighting coming into the lens? If there is a lot of light coming into the lens the picture quality is good, its even better if im taking photos outside. However when i try taking photos with flash on, the picture dosent blur, but as you know having flash on takes away that natural colour which i dont want, hence i use it more often without flash.


I would really appreciate your help guys, your advice would be priceless on how i can avoid the problems im having as demonstrated above when it comes to taking photos indoors.

Cheers and Many Thanks
 
I would guess that there was not a lot of light and so the shutter speed was too slow. We could do with the EXIF data to be sure but if it is the above then you would need to increase the light OR decrease the amount of light needed...... So either add flash (increase the light) OR increase the ISO (increase the sensitivity and hence decrease the amount of light needed BUT increase noise).
 
Is it possible you can post the images with the exif data intact, it would help?

The mvement blurring of the child and the hands suggests

1 Your shutter speed is to low. Even with steady shot if your shutter speed is low you will get motion blurring as steady shot does not freeze movement.

or 2 Even with steady shot on you are still moving the camera too much.

Or 3 a Combination of both.

You can get natural colours with flash you just have to ensure your white balance is correctly set and the exposure is correct.
 
Shutter speed and/or shaky hands in the first 4.. the giveaway is that everything in the image is blurred. And the blurring is directional - very noticeable in the 2nd and 4th where I think you were directing the camera towards something as you took the shot.
 
As Mark said the shutter speed is too low - i.e. the shutter is open for too long and you can't hold the camera still enough for that time.

You are most likely already using the biggest aperture setting available (but if not, increase the aperture size)
Your best bet is to put the camera on a tripod, or set it on a table and use the self timer.

That still won't help with the shots where there is subject movement (e.g. when they are clapping). Maybe experiment with a flash and try different white balance settings.
 
You probably needed to up the iso to cope with the low levels of light.
 
Agree with the above, you need to get the shutter speed up by the looks of things. It looks like camera shake / movement, and the fact that moving people are blurred is a giveaway too. Don't be affraid to up the ISO, especially when indoors. Even a room which seems quite brightly lit to your eye will still require you to pay close attention to your ISO/Shutter speed for your given aperture.
 
As said, the shutter speed is too slow. I would thing you'd be needing at least ISO 1600 for low light indoors shots with the kit lens. Also, keep the lens as wide as possible so you have a lower f number.

Don't be scared of upping the ISO - better a grainy shot than a blurred one..
 
As above. You say "the lighting was good" but while it might look good to your eye (which is very adaptive) it doesn't look so good to the camera. It is too low, the camera has compensated by selecting a longer shutter speed to allow more light to the sensor, and you've got blur both from camera shake and subject movement.

Various ways around it, with upsides and downsides. You'll get the hang of it as you learn more. Use a lower f/number which allows more light through the lens, or raise the ISO which increases the sensitivity of the sensor. Or both. Steady-Shot will help with camera shake, but cannot prevent subject movement. Same with using a tripod. Flash will sort it, but not always possible.

Are you aware of the hand-holding rule? It's only a rough guide but it relates lens focal length to your longest possible shutter speed for hand holding, before camera shake becomes a problem. The rough guide is don't go longer than your effective focal length.

Your effective focal length is your actual focal length set on the lens, x the crop factor (which is 1.5x on a Sony). So if your lens is set at 24mm, multiply by 1.5 and you get 36. If you're shutter speed drops below that, you're in danger.

Steady-Shot helps a lot with this, and you can go longer than the rule quite successfully, but the danger there then becomes subject movement. Just a bit of learning and application of basic technique. Ask questions, give it a try, ask some more, you'll soon be sorted.
 
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