I took pictures inside the house for Easter, and even though I was close and used the natural light of the living room, my picture was dark! Check the exif info on your photo (you can use a free viewer like exif view from http://home.pacbell.net/michal_k/exif_v.... and see what the shutter speed and focal length is. If shutter speed is slower then 1/focal lenght (or 1/30 as a rough gauge), then it's probably camera shake that makes the picture blurred.
If your picture is dark, there's probably not enough light for the camera to function. Try using flash or increasing the ISO. If your camera has different modes, check if the one you used is shutter priority. In low light situations the aperture might not be able to compensate for the given shutter speed. If possible, switch to aperture priority or program/auto mode instead. A picture being dark has nothing to do with the autofocus. I'll answer both questions. Autofocus can be wrong if there is some stuff in the picture close up and other stuff far away. A picture is too dark if it didn't take the picture over enough time. Maybe you reached the limits of your camera. indoors always use a flash, even if there is light, and most cameras if you lightly touch the button it will focus the camera before you snap the picture
all cameras have settings that can be changed for better results, better quality cameras have better/more settings
you should have been able to tell the pictures are dark on the screen on the back of the camera also and then retook the picture
good luck There can be a lot of reasons why your autofocus isn't working. A dirty lense, low lighting, damaged electronics, etc. A good way to check is to take a picture outside, on a sunny day, with the sun to the back of the photographer. Take several photographs at various distances from the subject without changing the zoom (i.e. by walking closer to and father away from the subject). Also take several photographs standing approximately 8 feet away from the subject but with a different zoom (optical zoom not digital zoom). If the camera focuses fine, the problem was probably low light.
If the problem still persists, trying cleaning the camera, lense and all. For tips on cleaning your camera, check out this website http://www.photo.net/learn/cleaning-came...
If you still have a problem, it could be the electronics. If it's the electronics and it's still under warranty, contact the maker. If it isn't still under warranty, well, I would suggest you start looking for a new camera. Unless this is a high-end compact or digital SLR, the cost of repairing the camera is probably about 50-75% of the cost of buying a new better camera.
Also, check the user guide that came with the camera. It should have a troubleshooting section in the appendices.
Good luck. Auto focus and Auto exposure are two different things. If the picture came out fuzzy, it's either a focus problem or a movement problem. Focus- you were either too close or the camera chose the wrong thing to focus on.
Movement-the exposure speed was long and it picked up the movement of your hand
Too Dark- there may not have been enough light, even with natural light coming in through the window.
Lightness of the picture is determined by speed/aperature (width of lens opening) combination. The aperature can only open so far, then it has to compensate with the speed. To reduce the effect of movement it may limit the speed. So the best available combination may still not be enough to get a bright picture. If the pictures turned out dark, maybe there wasn't as much light as you thought there was.
Our eyes play tricks on us all the time. We can easily see fantastic detail in the dusk, or in poorly lit swimming pools etc., but you can forget taking decent pictures in that kind of light.
Also, it doesn't sound like you know the features and limitations of you camera very well yet - you seem to confuse autofocus with exposure.
For indoor situations, if you don't want to use flash, really crank up the iso, and set the aperture to its smallest number. I found that my Minolta auto-focus has problems working in low light levels. The fact that your picture was dark suggests your camera has this problem too.
Many times using a flash is impossible even with dimly lit close-ups, and won't help with focusing problems anyway. The best solution I found was to bring in a small desk lamp and shine it on the subject beyond the view of the camera. This helps the camera to focus, and most cameras have good enough "white balance" so the color won't be skewed by the artificial light.
I also found that using the "zooming" the lens in and out a bit often helps too.
Something that often helps my camera to focus in low light is to but something white or quite shiny (like a piece of aluminum foil) near where I want the camera to focus. |
