Photos look hazy, need help very confused

[clark2kent]

:confused:I am a point and shot photographer. I have a new Canon SD850 IS camera and I don't know if it is me or the camera that is causing my images to look soft/hazy. I tried the different presets and the images look very blended or hazy for a lack of better terms. I bought an Olympus Stylus 800 prier to the canon SD850 and the images looked almost burry to me. They were very soft and not what I expected from a new digital camera so I returned it and bought the Canon. The red eye reduction is horrible and does not work. Every picture of a person no matter the angle their eyes are red. The software for the most part will take care of this, but I don't want to spend hours to manually fix this when cameras in the past isn’t have this problem. For the past 7 years I’ve been using a Casio QV3000EX 3.3 mega pixel and the image quality looks much clearer/sharper and I rarely had a red eye problem. The image quality for point and shot seems to be much better than both the new cameras that I tried. I don't understand why. I want to have a compact camera that takes good photos like my old Casio. Is it me or the camera?
Thanks for any advice you may have.

[griptape]

Are you able to post any sample pictures to show us specifically what's going wrong?

[AndyfromVA]

The SD850IS has a "custom color" section in the "my colors" portion of the menu. The custom color section contains a sharpness adjustment that lets you adjust the photos to be as sharp as you want.

[tfa8rva]

This may seem obvious, but is your lens dirty? You could also try going into the settings menu and go all the way to the bottom and select “Reset All.” I have the SD870IS, and it takes awesome pictures, so I figure the IS850 should as well. Also, I think that red eye is just the name of the game when it comes to compact P&S cameras because the flash is so close to being in line with the lens. If you don't want to deal with red eye you might have to get a camera that has a pop-up flash, or supports an external flash. Also, what I've found that helps for portrait type pics on my SD870 is to fold a little piece of paper in half and tape it over the flash.

Jay

[piedownjoe]

This might sound really strange, but it's a more common problem than people think.

If you live in the American Southeast (LA, MS, AL, GA, FL, NC, SC, TN), Central or South America, Southern Australia, Southwest Africa, Oceania or any other region where humidity is high, you may be looking at fungus. If you live in a generally dryer area, you might think I'm dumb for saying this. The fact is, though, that humidity is cyanide to a camera, specifically its lens, and will cause a fungus to grow on the inside of the lens. Or maybe you don't live in such an area, but the origin of the camera was from a humid climate.

This is even more common on SLR cameras where the lens can easily be removed, but all cameras are prone to the problem. There is really no way to get rid of it, but there are plenty of preventative measures. I'm not sure if such a problem is covered under the warranty for the 850.

That's just a guess. If you could post a picture to show what exactly is wrong, that would be helpful.

[Beowulff]

Canons are recognised for having generally what's called a 'soft' image — but not out of focus by any means. You may want to screw up the in-camera sharpness setting a notch to see if it makes any difference. My partner uses an A720 IS and its images (to my eye at least) are soft at its default settings.

Re the red-eye issue: As the previous poster said, all P&Ss tend to have this problem, and there ain't much you can do about it in-camera. It can help if your subjects can look slightly away from the camera, rather than directly at the lens.

Cheers :)

[piedownjoe]

I came across this link:

http://help.cnet.com/Digital_cameras/9602-12576_39-0.html?messageID=2505154&kw=Digital+cameras&nodeId=6501

...in regards to lens fungus. It will give a (by definition) haze to images, but in some cases, you can have "veins" in your images, which it doesn't sound like is the problem unless you failed to mention it.

It's a good think I found this article, because I was going to suggest you keep it in the case and with a lens cap on it, but that looks like it's the worst thing. I'm not much of a biology major, and I thought fungi relied on photosynthesis when, in fact, it's quite the opposite.

According to that article and many others, the best way to prevent fungus and to keep a clean lens in general is to keep your camera in a dry and well lit (but not directly sunlit) area, and if possible, contained with silica gel. Silica gel is packaged with electronics to prevent moisture from eating away at the guts of the product, and it will destroy any means of life support for fungus.

If the camera does, in fact, have fungus, send it to Canon or a professional to have it cleaned.

Perhaps I went off on a tangent, but if anybody is experiencing truly hazy photos with no explanation, this is definitely a problem worth investigating. All brands and types (digital or film, SLR or fixed-lens) of cameras are prone to it.

[clark2kent]

Thank you all for your input. I think I may have found some answers. 1. I noticed that when I take a photo, the way I hold this camera my middle finger is partially blocking the flash. 2. I think for a few of the pictures the lens may have had finger prints on it. 3. I notice when I take some picture that the little green box is not on the middle of the subject. I have the face detection turned on but it doesn’t always highlight the face. Therefore I think the camera is focusing on something other than what I think it should be focusing on. I noticed this when looking at a photo of my daughters in front of the Christmas tree and their toys. The toys looked sharper then them.

I still get a lot of red I when ever I take photos indoors. It doesn’t matter if the subject is looking strait at the camera or not. The red eye is there at any angle. I don’t know if this matters but I did a comparison on the Best Buy web site of the Cannon 850 IS and the Cannon 870 IS. The difference in flash mode may be the key. The Flash modes are listed as this 850 IS: Auto, flash-on and flash-off. 870 IS: Auto, auto with red-eye reduction, flash-on, flash-on with red-eye reduction, flash-off, FE lock and slow synchro

I think my 850 IS uses a red beam to try to reduce the red eye where as the 870 IS has “Flash with red eye reduction” I think this is like the cameras that have a pre flash to shrink the pupils. Overall I like everything about this camera, the size, the screen, the menus, the software, the battery charger, the looks of it, everything but the photos it takes. If I didn’t have to clean up the red eye or trash half the images because of the red eye I would be happy.

[griptape]

The red beam isn't to reduce red eye, it's to help the camera focus (provides a light where there would otherwise be very little contrast by which to judge focus). Red eye reduction flash modes, in my opinion anyway, are kind of useless. Because people see the flash (the first flash) and then look away or blink because they think you're done taking the picture, and then you've lost your composition.

And face detection is very gimmicky. All it does is look for two eyes and a mouth. If you had toys under the tree that were similar looking to two eyes and a mouth, that would explain your missed focus.

[tfa8rva]

The red beam isn't to reduce red eye, it's to help the camera focus (provides a light where there would otherwise be very little contrast by which to judge focus). Red eye reduction flash modes, in my opinion anyway, are kind of useless. Because people see the flash (the first flash) and then look away or blink because they think you're done taking the picture, and then you've lost your composition.

And face detection is very gimmicky. All it does is look for two eyes and a mouth. If you had toys under the tree that were similar looking to two eyes and a mouth, that would explain your missed focus.

Actually, on the Canons....well at least the ones I have used, the red beam doubles as the red eye reduction light. If you have red eye reduction turned on, the beam will stay on until you press the shutter all the way down. If red eye reduction is turned of, then the beam will only turn on long enough to help focus the camera and then turn off. It has no effect on the flash, which seems to do two quick flashes regardless of how it's set.

clark2kent, The flash modes on the SD870 are the same as the SD850, I'm not sure what Best Buy is talking about.

[griptape]

Actually, on the Canons....well at least the ones I have used, the red beam doubles as the red eye reduction light. If you have red eye reduction turned on, the beam will stay on until you press the shutter all the way down. If red eye reduction is turned of, then the beam will only turn on long enough to help focus the camera and then turn off. It has no effect on the flash, which seems to do two quick flashes regardless of how it's set.

clark2kent, The flash modes on the SD870 are the same as the SD850, I'm not sure what Best Buy is talking about.

On my SD550, flash on will only flash once, and the red eye reduction flash flashes twice. And my manual describes the red light as an auto focus light. So that's what I was basing it on. A small red beam isn't nearly enough to actually reduce the size of someone's pupil unless they're in pitch black light, and have been in pitch black light for several minutes. So if the focus lamp is supposed to double as a red eye light, it's a horrible design.

[clark2kent]

I returned the SD850IS thinking that there must be something wrong with it because of the RED EYE Problem. I experimented with the camera and read many positive post about the camera and thought that I might just have a Lemon. Every picture that I took indoor with flash had Red Eye. Yesterday after exchanging it for a new SD850IS I experimented with that one. I had the same results. Every picture when the flash went off there was some degree of red eye. I am convinced That this camera in not good for taking photos indoor with flash. Does anyone have recommendations on a camera that is comparable to the SD850IS that will produce good indoor photos in different lighting conditions? As I mentioned earlier that I like everything about the canon SD850SI except the RED EYES.

[piedownjoe]

The SD850 IS has a red-eye removal tool in playback mode.

[clark2kent]

Yes the camera has a red eye removal tool and it works to some degree. Sometimes the eyes end up looking grey and not natural. But the whole point is not to spend hours removing red eyes on the camera or using the PC. I mentioned before that I have a Casio QV3000 that is about 8 years old and I rarely had a red eye problem.

[piedownjoe]

In that case, you won't find a heck of a lot of ultra compact cameras comparable to the SD850 IS that won't have a redeye problem. Redeye has to do with how far away the flash is from the lens. The larger the lens, the farther away the flash has to be. On the Casio you speak of, you're dealing with a relatively smaller lens and an out-of-the-way flash.

Since compact cameras like the SD850 IS strive to be, well, compact...they're going to scrunch everything together. The flash will usually hover right above the lens.

Check out the Casio Exilim V8. It takes pretty decent photos, has full manual control, and from reviews I read, has no redeye. That's probably your only option if you want an ultra-compact. Otherwise, post processing will be necessary no matter where you go.

Knowing that redeye is a huge problem on ultra compacts of all brands, I would say stick with the SD850 IS and bear through post processing. If you absolutely must store and share photos on the fly, the Casio Exilim ultra compacts are worth a look, but might lack in comparison to the Canon Digital ELPHs.

[griptape]

What piedownjoe said is absolutely correct. It has nothing to do with the manufacturer of the camera, it's about physics and how light works. A flash close to the lens will produce red eye on a consistent basis. The reason for red eye is that even though pupils look black under normal lighting, there's a lot of blood vessels behind them, so a strong burst of flash that's very close to the same line of sight as the lens is looking at will provide such a direct illumination that you'll see the blood behind the pupils. The further away from the lens's line of sight the flash is, the less likely you are to have red eye. Moving the flash away from the lens is a hard thing to ask a small camera to do.