Help on Olympus FE 250 Night Mode

[zyclonenuz]

Hello everyone. First of all let me introduce my self... I'm Jay from the Philippines and I'm new on this forum and second of all I'm also a newbie when it comes to digital camera r

Anyway I just want to know what is it with our Olympus FE 250 everytime we use Night Mode or Night Portrait we always end up with blurry picture. Well I know its not my hands because I have a very steady hand when I'm taking pictures. Heck Auto mode is far way better than the night mode but the only problem is if we use the auto mode at night the view from the background is not really that clear. Here are some sample pictures I took from Hong Kong using Night Mode and Night Portrait.









and here is the result of Auto Mode.




Hope you guys can help. Thanks in advance

[Jaedon]

Hi Jay and welcome to the forum.

The reason that the images are blurry is because the shutter speed is so low that no matter how steady your hands are they are still moving when the shutter is open. I can tell that your hands are steadier than most because the images are not a complete blur, but nonetheless the pictures did blur. Also trying to shoot land while on a boat there is always motion that you cannot control.

In order to shoot properly in this mose with a slow shutter you need to either put the camera on a trip pod or on a hard surface where it will not move while the shutter is open.

To further explain this, as the light levels get lower the camera will drop the shutter speed below 1/30th of a second, which is about the average persons "hand held" thresh hold. My P&S camera will go as slow as 1/15th of a second. While this may still sound somewhat fast it is incredibly slow in shutter terms when you consider that in direct sunlight the shutter will go as fast at 1/2000th to maintain proper exposure.

When you set it to automatic mode the camera then sets the fastest shutter speed it can achieve to eliminate the "shakes" and therefore uses the flash to supply the light necessary for proper exposure.

I hope this helps.

[zyclonenuz]

Hi Jay and welcome to the forum.

The reason that the images are blurry is because the shutter speed is so low that no matter how steady your hands are they are still moving when the shutter is open. I can tell that your hands are steadier than most because the images are not a complete blur, but nonetheless the pictures did blur. Also trying to shoot land while on a boat there is always motion that you cannot control.

In order to shoot properly in this mose with a slow shutter you need to either put the camera on a trip pod or on a hard surface where it will not move while the shutter is open.

To further explain this, as the light levels get lower the camera will drop the shutter speed below 1/30th of a second, which is about the average persons "hand held" thresh hold. My P&S camera will go as slow as 1/15th of a second. While this may still sound somewhat fast it is incredibly slow in shutter terms when you consider that in direct sunlight the shutter will go as fast at 1/2000th to maintain proper exposure.

When you set it to automatic mode the camera then sets the fastest shutter speed it can achieve to eliminate the "shakes" and therefore uses the flash to supply the light necessary for proper exposure.

I hope this helps.

hmmm bummer. I think its kinda bulky to travel with a Tripod especially if when we go to other country we always do tons of shopping and etc. Anyway I'll inform my sister about the tripod thingy.. since it is really her camera... Heck I get better result on my Nokia N95 8gig compare to the digital camera.. well better but not perfect. I mean less blurry So basically there is no way to fix this unless we use a tripod right ?

anyway thanks for the reply

[Jaedon]

You can use a mini tripod. They make them small enough to fit in a purse or hip pack. As long as the camera is as motionless as possible. But yeah that is pretty much the only way I know of to fix the problem you are asking about.

Jay