Why do my digital photos always come out blurred?

trying to use digi-camera to take photos for e-bay., close up as small items. zoom looks ok when i take items. but always blurred when on the laptop. obviously new to digital cameras and laptop!!!
normal photos ok. my camera only has 3 settings for pictures. all of which are not on the recommended setting for ebay.it a praktica ssimplex 5200.

Most of the above answers are good and correct. I'll add that with digital cameras, you very much get what you pay for, and that the model you have (Slimpix 5200, not spelt "Simplex") is particularly basic as cameras go. You should not expect results to be any better than from a modern camera phone.

Anyway, in the circumstances, the most likely problem is that instead of autofocus, the 5200 has a fixed-focus lens, which even on the macro setting (should have a symbol of a flower for this) won't fare well with close-up subjects. The Praktica website is useless and I've been unable to find the close-focus distance for your camera.

Finally, do try to use good daylight: the flash won't do you any favours for close-up subjects. And rest assured that taking good close-ups for eBay is hard at the best of times!

Perhaps your hands aren't steady when you're shooting. Try bracing yourself on something stable. There's enough time during which your camera is scanning that movement will cause things to look blurred.

Perhaps you have oil or dirt on your lens. That will also cause your photos to look blurry.

Try using a flash?

Your camera should have a close up function. It may be marked MAF. Don't forget that you should support the camera firmly, especially so if you are not using the flash ,otherwise you will get camera-shake. It's not rocket science. If all else fails, read the instruction book !

You are not using high enough shutter speeds , try using a small tripod & failing that take the pictures outside in the daylight

If you're trying to do close-ups, you want to use the macro focus on your camera. This is usually marked with a flower. And use flash and keep it real steady.

if you are way too close the camera cannot focus on the image, try moving back a bit then cropping the part of the picture you want to put on ebay with photoshop or something similar

Read the manual to see what is minimum distance allowed from the subject and the camera lens. Your lens might be too close to the subject. That is why it is blurred.

Set your camera to MACRO for close-ups (look for a flower). Don't use zoom during macro. Move the camera close to the subject and depress the shutter button 陆 way down (this will cause the camera to focus). When the subject is in focus, push the button the rest of the way.

If the camera doesn't focus, move it slightly further away from the subject and try focusing again. Repeat until you find the shortest focus distance.

e-bay will optomize photos.

The best thing I've found for taking close ups of things for ebay (or in my case the site I sell on which is bidbugs), is to stand FURTHER from the object, and then zoom in more. If you have a digital zoom on your camera, then you'll probably find you can zoom in and then it stops zooming, and if you press the zoom button again, it will go in even closer using it's digital zoom thingumy. That way you don't get such a blurry picture, and if you're using the flash, you don't get the flash making the image all glarey either.

Try setting you resolution to high and stepping back from the subject a little. This usually cures this problem.
Then you can crop it on the computer
Check out on ebay for a cheap tripod this will improve your pics 100% and good lighting or flash is essential