I don't understand my camera. I used to get really nice pictures, even in "difficult-to-focus" situations. Birds, as we all know, sometimes sit in trees. I can look back at any number of good photos of birds sitting in trees, with lots of branches in the way, and the bird is STILL IN FOCUS.
Let me show you what kind of pictures I got today...pictures of a bird moment that we always feel lucky to see:
I went down the road to look at the nearby red-shouldered hawk nest, to see if any fresh greenery was visible. (That means that hawks are actively preparing the nest)
No greenery, but a nice show of the RSHA that was perched nearby...
It was perched in a tree next to the road:
Let me show you what kind of pictures I got today...pictures of a bird moment that we always feel lucky to see:
I went down the road to look at the nearby red-shouldered hawk nest, to see if any fresh greenery was visible. (That means that hawks are actively preparing the nest)
No greenery, but a nice show of the RSHA that was perched nearby...
It was perched in a tree next to the road:
Why is this so blurry? It was nowhere near as dark as it appears in the photo. And this bird was maybe 30 feet away.The hawk let out a shriek and took off for another tree. I watched it land, and then I heard an even higher shriek...but not as loud.
The hawk had caught some kind of rodent:
You can see in this one that there should have been sufficient lighting to get a good focus on the hawk. The sun was setting and bathing the bird in a beautiful light. This should have been a fabulous photo. But nothing is in focus, even close objects!
What does all this mean?
My camera is not fixed. I am no longer getting "Lens Error" messages, but the focus is still off.
Even trying to take pictures of the sitting GHOW at Lake Isabella is useless. An unobstructed, well-lit situation still yields crap.
I am about to email my "insider" and give her the bad news. She seems like a nice person and I am sure she doesn't want to hear from me again, but I am still unhappy with this camera that used to take stellar pictures. I missed a golden opportunity today (and other days) because the camera refused to focus. How can a $500 camera take pictures like this?
14 comments:
What a tremendous drag! Help, Insider, help!
BTW, how are the Amish?
Oh and like nine days (at least that is what Vivi tells me).
That's disappointing. Something must have been set improperly during repairs. Or perhaps the autofocus needs to be retrained?
Trixie:
The Amish are just fine. I didn't go on the bird walk yesterday because I was getting a killer headache and I had a long drive ahead of me.
She's counting the days? That kid is too cute.
John:
VERY disappointing. But they had three chances to fix this and now they owe me a new camera (lemon policy).
Well, the second photo is clearly focused on the larger branches on the right side of the frame which must be closer to you. The bird is a bit farther away. You are fussing about something that even very expensive cameras have trouble with - trying to focus on something that is hidden in between a bunch of stuff at varying distances. Before you cry foul, you need to try some testing with a more normal focusing situation.
Anon:
Fussing? FUSSING?
Excuse me. But you should read my blog and look at some of my other pictures before you say that I am FUSSING.
If you would like to look AGAIN at the second picture you will see that even the closer objects are NOT IN FOCUS.
Please don't come here and tell me that I am "crying foul".
Before all my camera issues began, I was taking fabulous pictures under worse conditions as this. Pictures of freakin' warblers in the midst of a zillion leaves come out better than this.
Step off. I have justified reasons to be pissed.
how frustrating and no doubt that I would be emailing them! Looks like something isn't right here!
I'm so sorry! I'd be weeping with frustration if I were you! You are being amazingly big about it!
Ok. Those pictures don't look like "Susan's" pictures! This has been going on too long. Time for a new one, I think, and not at your expense!
And, what's with this ANON know-it-all! What a coward. Holy crap.
So sorry to hear/see that the camera is still not fixed. What a drag! I hope Ms Insider can help you out.
You didn't miss much with the "bird walk." Typically, it is 20 or 30 people standing around looking at the lake. We did get snipe there one year, but otherwise, not a whole lot of things other than ducks & grebes. And no one sticks around too long. It is just a nice little wrap-up to the day.
~Kathi
PS: E-mail to follow about my weekend.
Frustrating. Just out of curiosity, what kind of camera are you using?
Maybe contacting the company, rather than a distributor would get the issue solved promptly.
(especially if they realize that you're posting examples of their fine product's performance on an internationally viewed forum??)
Susan: Is there any type of setting on the lens or camera for the 'infinity point'? My terminology isn't right i don't think, but on my lenses there is a scale around the end of the lens that can be changed to affect the range of focus. Any such thing on yours?
From looking at the photos I think it is pretty obvious what the problem was, and it was clearly operator error.
Based upon the calculations that I did, the photos were probably out of focus because you had a glass of water in your left hand and you were inadvertently focusing through the glass of water.
Your ever-helpful friend & FIL.
Do you have IS (Image Stability or something like that) turned on?
Oh Susan, I'm so sorry. Camera problems just suck, especially when you see something neat that you really want to capture & share.
(I delete lots of pictures like this but it's because I don't know very much about my camera and have never taken the time to learn what I can do with it)
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