coolpix 4100 blur problem

[ford352]

sometimes its good to turn the flash off, but when i do this, the camera automatically slows the shutter speed way down, creating a blurry image. is there any way to take the flash off but keep the shutter speed high in order to take a clean photo with no blur?

[TheObiJuan]

do you have an aperture priority mode, or a manual mode?
this should fix it.

[ford352]

to be honest im not sure what you mean by those two different modes, what are they and how would you change them on the camera?

[David Metsky]

Check your owners manual. The aperture priority mode is a way many cameras have to allow you to tell the camera to keep the shutter speed high and change everything else around to compensate. This will only go so far, because if you keep the shutter speed fast less light will reach the CCD. At that point the camera can only push the ISO as far as it will go, and that will cause noise.

There's no free lunch, if there isn't enough light available your picture will either be blurry (faster shutter speed) or dark (slower shutter speed). ISO can help but at the expense of noise on the image.

If the 4100 has manual controls or aperture priority mode you should be able to tell the camera to keep the shutter speed high, but it may not solve all your problems.

[John_Reed]

There's no free lunch, if there isn't enough light available your picture will either be blurry (faster shutter speed) or dark (slower shutter speed). ISO can help but at the expense of noise on the image.Maybe I mistook your point, but I think you meant to say that a faster shutter speed would tend to give darker, but sharper pictures, and a slower shutter speed would tend to give brighter, but blurrier pictures, right? And just for the un-initiated, "1/20" shutter speed is slower than "1/100".

[David Metsky]

More than a slight correction, a complete reversal of what I said, but yours is correct. :o

[George Riehm]

sometimes its good to turn the flash off, but when i do this, the camera automatically slows the shutter speed way down, creating a blurry image. is there any way to take the flash off but keep the shutter speed high in order to take a clean photo with no blur?

Since the 4100 has no manual controls (other than white balance and exposure compensation), and ISO is completely automatic, you options are pretty limited, but here are a couple:

1. Add more ambient light, buy turning on a couple more 100w lamps. this would, of course, be the most obvious method.

2. Set the exposure compensation to underexpose by a couple of levels (like -0.3 to -1.0) and use the levels control adjustment in a program like Photoshop Elements to recover the information hidden in the underexposed frame. You may also need a noise reduction program like Noise Ninja to help clean up as well.

The second option actually works pretty well with a little practice. If you don't have Photoshop Elements it might be time to get it. The same is true for Noise Ninja (about $35 for the standard home version).

http://www.picturecode.com/