New Olympus fe 4000 turning out horrible quality. Help.

[DavidMann1987]

Hey,

I just bought an Olympus fe-4000 for my girlfriend for Christmas. I heard it was an amazing camera and that the quality was quite good for a point-and-shoot. However, when taking some shots with it today (first ones ever we took), they are turning out with muted color and VERY washed out - or - very crappy quality. I messed around with all the settings and I could not find any settings for saturation or anything else. All the photos - no matter what setting I did them under - turned out the same. Here are some of the photos I took - as you can see the problem is pretty apparent.

Did I just get sent a bad apple out of the group and should I just return it for another of the same? - or is this camera in general just like this??

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/8245/pc250003.jpg

http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/5063/pc250005q.jpg

http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/2601/pc250007.jpg

[EOSThree]

Actually that's pretty typical of what you'll see with a point and shoot camera in a relatively dark room with flash. The flashes on the small cameras tend to be a little bright or dark depending on the size of the room you are in.

Try it outdoors tomorrow. See how it does with good light. My guess is it will perform pretty well.

[DavidMann1987]

In the daylight it is all muted color and washed out as well. =/

I hear ya bout the low-light flash and sutch, however my friend has an HP photosmart and in low light and other conditions it turns out WAY better than that.

[calexp]

I agree with EOSThree, in low light almost every point and shoot with flash has this problem.
Had the same problem a few years back with my first point&shoot.
Try to reset it back to default settings and try again in daylight to be sure, but don't shoot against the light, CCDs are easly confused with bright light.

[Greg McCary]

Post some pictures from outside in good light.......

[angryguy88]

hey I am a noob who just bought a samsung PL60(a noob camera). I made a slideshow on youtube if you want to check it out. It has got a few pics in dark settings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chZOH81hyg0

now i dont know if that is good or not but i had pictures just like yours at first. Then i started to play with the manual mode.

I find it best when i:
1) Set ISO to lowest as possible
2)Set Exposure value to lowest setting (when i try this with my fujifilm j250, the image was still bright and washed out if i use flash)
3)Use flash
4)If the image is too bright, aim the camera at something dark then press shutter halfway then aim at your subject for the full shutter.

The point is try not to use the auto / smart mode, they tend to make pictures grainy when lightning is not good. I dont know if this will help but cant hurt to try right?

[byjamesderuvoDHQ]

You can take a piece of wax or parchment paper and tape it over the flash to diffuse it some. But I think you need to remember that flashes are designed with a limited range and mostly around small groups and portraits. Outside about 5-9 feet, the flassh will dissipate pretty drastically. Too close and the flash is too hot without some way to diffuse it. That's pretty much the nature of the beast.

But it's also probably being unfamiliar with how your camera works. Try the different program settings. There's probably a portrait, a sports setting, a few others. You can also use exposure compensation and take away a stop or two. Play with your camera, experiment more, and read your manual from cover to cover.