Problems with the Sony CyberShot

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NoodleBoy

New member
I've recently purchased a Sony CyberShot DSC-S930 and having problems with focusing. Regardless if the photo is of a mini, or of just daily shots, my pictures tend to come out grainy and alittle blurred. I've tried fiddling with the settings, but, I'm a camera idiot. I could use some help.

Heres a photo I took, and all I did was resize it down, but not the DPI. Settings are at default, and it seems less detailed than it should for being 10.1 mega pixels with 3x optical zoom.

http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/frogger143/mestudio036.jpg

HELP MEEEEE!

-NB

EDIT- Heres an additonal photo, only cropped taken literally right after I purchased it
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/frogger143/mestudio008.jpg
 
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Avelorn

Avelorn

Sven Jonsson
Ouch, that wasn't very good. Do you have the macro setting on? It's the little flower button.
 
N

NoodleBoy

New member
Avelorn said:
Ouch, that wasn't very good. Do you have the macro setting on? It's the little flower button.
Click to expand...

When taking pictures for minatures, I don't seem to have the same sort of problems using the Macro setting, I'll take a photo as an example. Its more an issue when using it otherwise, I get the quality that I've linked.
 
Avelorn

Avelorn

Sven Jonsson
Have you tried doing close-ups without the macro setting on? Meaning that it is stuck in the macro setting. you don't have any manual settings right? Maybe the autofocus is out of order.
 
N

NoodleBoy

New member
Heres some more shots that I hadn't bothered to upload before. They're from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and I had a blast walking around and taking shots with the new camera. I actually hadn't noticed anything wrong with any of them when I reviewed them on my computer, but never bothered to upload them from some reason. The one shot I have that I feel is a good example, is of a small broach, couldnt be more than an inch wide. I was about, inches away from the glass boundry, macro set on, but I cant recall how I had it zoomed. Probably all the way wide for quality. It came out great in one shot surprsingly.

First shot is a crop of the picture directly uploaded from the camera with no resizing. I noticed that they upload 72 dpi, and perhaps thats the issue with my focusing, just bad pixilization(sp?) in fuzzy areas? Second is the actual shot, resized, still at 72 dpi. The other is without the macro setting on, of a large bust, I could have been about, 4-6 feet away I think. Final one is one I just recently took, after setting the camera settings back to default completely (incase there was something I missed), macro setting again about 2-3 feet away, only alittle zoomed in. This was the best out of several shots taken.

Suggestions?

http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/frogger143/cameratest001a.jpg
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/frogger143/cameratest001b.jpg
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/frogger143/cameratest002a.jpg
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t143/frogger143/cameratest003a.jpg
 
Rugne

Rugne

New member
Yeah, the digital zoom is generally to be avoided, because it encourages the chip to try to fill in stuff. There should be something in the manual to help you work out which is which, also you might want to check what settings your taking your pictures at, a lot of cameras have an option to change the size of the pics your taking.
If your camera is set too low, that could account for it.

Marc
 
N

NoodleBoy

New member
I've gone over the manual a few times, however, it could be written in Spanish with a Dutch accent for all I know, with the amount of unexplained abbreviations it flings at you, thinking you'd know what half of the crap is.

So you recommend attempting to see if the actual size of the picture would help quality? That setting I do know (I hope)...

Heres what it lists:

10m - Up to A3+/13x19" print This is the default I believe
3:2(8m) - Match 3:2 Aspect Ratio
5m - Up to A4/8x10" print
3m - Up to 13x18cm/5x7" print
VGA - For Email
16:9(7m) - Display On 19:9 HDTV and up to A4/8x10" print
16:9(2m) - Display on 16:9 HDTV

Suggestions?
 
Avelorn

Avelorn

Sven Jonsson
I don't think you have a digital zoom on it? The optical zoom shouldn't be a problem. I suggest you take it to the store or someone you know who can test it to see if there is something wrong with the camera. I can't really tell from the photos but remember that when you shoot in low light conditions you can't move the camera because of the shutter time. So if the problem is maintained in broad daylight something is wrong. you should have image stabilization on it? Is that turned on?

Use the 10M default setting.
 
S

Spacemunkie

New member
All those shots are low light and most appear to be hand held.

2 problems:

Camera shake and if you're shooting in auto (which I would guess would be your only real option with a camera of this ilk) then the camera will be bumping ISO to raise your shutter speed. This will give you noisy, grainy pics especially with the tiny sensors in p&s cameras. Many camera manufacturers counter this by applying horrendous levels of in-camera noise reduction which simply smears the graininess away - along with fine detail. Think something along the lines of applying a gaussian blur in Photoshop across your whole image. Not good.

I'd suggest that a 60-70 quid camera will not have the best lens attached to it as well.

It's not a fault with the camera (which gives you a fair bit for the pittance it costs...) and there's little you can do about it short of using flash or a tripod and dropping your ISO. The best performing p&s cameras at high ISO are currently the Panasonic Lumix LX3, Canon G11 and S90. All cost around 350-400 quid - considerably more than what you paid for this little Sony :)
 
D

daGoz

New member
I'll take a stab at it.
Your easy solution is to take it to the store you bought it from and see if the staff can spot the problem. Most really good stores will probably help you even if you bought it on line.:shame:
I can't find which country you are in, but I guessed at the UK and looked up that version of your camera, so some guesses may be off if you are in the USA or else where.
Your camera does not have an 'autofocus illuminator' so if it does not have as much light as it wants your focus can suffer. If this is the problem, more light will fix it.
Your do have 'digital zoom' available (upto 6x worth) You will have to find where the setting is in the menus and ensure it is off.
There is also an 'ISO Sensitivity' in there some where with settings of Auto, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 & 3200. The larger the number the less light you need to take the picture, but the more 'artifacting' (blotchiness) you will get, which can also look like bad focus. For minis try and use 200 or less. You will probably need a tripod to avoid shaking pictures.
There is also a 'scene selection' which can affect what it thinks it is taking a picture of, ensure it is not set of 'soft snap'.
There are a few other settings I saw in there, but I would try these ones first, we can always look deeper if these don't work.
ps Spacemunkie is better than I am (and a faster typist to boot)
 
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N

NoodleBoy

New member
U.S. for future reference. I'll have to go over all the posts after I get some rest, been doing some mini sculpting and hit a good run with it, so I'm a tad caffinated and not really wanting to bother with the camera since I dont need it currently. Thanks though for all the amazing help. I've tried asking around previously on a few camera websites, but got jack diddly.

It was mostly just a time and cost issue when I bought the camera, and did little to no research. I needed a small camera that could do well with various tasks, miniature photo shoots, as well as your random OH HI THERE photo, reference photos, and still shots of my other artwork that didn't require being 1 foot away. I admit I did next to no research and went for price, but am just really surprised that even for $120 when I got it, the quality of the photo is well, shit. My old junker Olympus Camedia 4.0 megapixel one still gives me better detailed photos. Only problem is, its about the size of a fancy Nikon, and not something I want to use for every day things and for further professional quality.
 
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S

Spacemunkie

New member
The pic of the brooch you posted has plenty of detail. Problem is with the conditions you're using the camera in and the settings it's being forced to use to get a pic.

Slap it on a tripod and give it some light to work with. Lock ISO to 100.

Your mini pics will be fine.
 
N

NoodleBoy

New member
Again, the issue isn't really taking photos for minis, I've been able to get them fairly well, the issue is quality in normal 'every day' photos.

http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t...ratest002a.jpg

This one that I linked before, nothing was fussed with except for turning off the flash because light was fine, and well, wasn't allowed to use flash. But I can still see this fuzzy junk everywhere.
 
S

Spacemunkie

New member
NoodleBoy said:
...light was fine...
Click to expand...


It doesn't look particularly fine to me. It looks low level - meaning that the camera is bumping ISO giving you the effect you're moaning about. Posting samples at the size you're posting is utterly pointless as well. Post full size images (with EXIF!) straight out of camera if you want us to make an objective assessment. All I see is a standard p&s photo.

You're simply asking the camera to do stuff it's not good at. Doesn't mean that the camera is a piece of junk. It means that you bought the wrong camera for your needs and should have spent more time researching and more money on the camera itself.

Buy cheap, buy twice :D
 
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N

NoodleBoy

New member
Yaaa.

The light wasn't low level. I was below a skylight, with several spotlights pointed in various directions, sorry, I might be a photography nub, but I'm not an idiot. The light wasn't the issue. Light hasn't been an issue in just about every single photo I've taken.

And I can't exactly post pictures straight from the camera, as the images are well, huge, and take up quite abit of space on Photobucket. The example I posted of the broach, is merely just cropped, not resized or anything. Yes, its macro'd, but what I've described is present in EVERY photo I've taken.

Sure, its p.o.s camera, but I refuse to believe my 5 year old camera with less megapixles can make more detailed photos with the same ISO setting, no flash, in low light and in other situations.

Guess I'll experiment based on what people have given me, not getting much else help now.

And 100 buck is hardly cheap in my book, thats more a matter of perspective.
 
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