Night Pics

[ValerieBrooklyn]

Maybe this question has been asked before but I'm new to this forum. I just got my S3 and I'm in love. Of course, I'm still learning and find the Canon manual to be a bit difficult. I had a problem the other night taking a pic of the Statue of Liberty from my house about 1/2 mile away. I had it on Night Mode but sometimes it auto focused and another time the whole thing just stayed a blur and it woudln't even focus on Lady Liberty. Thoughts? Thank you.

[nap]

the S3 IS finds it difficult to auto-focus at the long end of the zoom (high zoom). Why don't you try manual focus instead to be able to lock the focus at infinity?

Also use a tripod or put it on something stable. Remember to turn off IS when mounting it on tripod.

[jonalta]

Maybe this question has been asked before but I'm new to this forum. I just got my S3 and I'm in love. Of course, I'm still learning and find the Canon manual to be a bit difficult. I had a problem the other night taking a pic of the Statue of Liberty from my house about 1/2 mile away. I had it on Night Mode but sometimes it auto focused and another time the whole thing just stayed a blur and it woudln't even focus on Lady Liberty. Thoughts? Thank you.
I will assume that you are really new to cameras. Pardon my tip if you already know it.
In Auto focus, the camera needs some contrast on the object to focus at. I presume that when you got good focus of Lady Liberty was when you pointed the "middle square" to her (with good contrast of light and shadows). Then when you just pointed your focusing square to bare night black sky, you get blurred pict because there's nothing to focus at. What you can do is:
1. zoom in to your desired frame.
2. move your focusing square to a point with good contrast on your subject then half press the shutter. You should get a green square (not orange)
3. shutter still half-pressed, pan back to your desired framing then press all the way to shoot.

Now, try taking some shots, resize them to maybe 600x480 then post them here. good luck!