CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

Elaine Benes · Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 1416

Can anyone tell me how to take good pictures of tube faces which are actually in focus ???

I have a new Olympus FE-20 digital camera. I know its a crappy little camera, but it has manual control of ISO, white balance, macro mode, flash as well as full auto modes and many "scene" modes. I can't for the life of me take a picture of a tubeface which is ACTUALLY FOCUSED !!!!

Every attempt I make is blurry, blurry, blurry. I've tried with a tripod, with a timer so I'm not touching the camera at all, everything I can think of and they're ALWAYS blurry....

The background is sharp as a tack, the floor, I can take a very sharp picture of that, but a tubeface, not on your life...

I know there are several people who post here regularly who know how to do this, can someone please post some instructions for camera dummies like me, please ??

ecrabb · Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:02 am Post subject:

The camera is probably focusing on infinity either because A) there's nothing for the camera to focus on, or B) you're too close. Try aiming the center of the viewfinder at the edge of the tube - something with some visual contrast for the camera to focus, press the shutter release part-way down to allow the camera to focus there, then without releasing the button, re-compose the shot to include the entire tube face, and press the shutter release all the way down. You may also need to back away from the projector a little, and zoom in to fill the frame.

SC

secstate · Joined: 20 Mar 2006 Posts: 720

I use a point and shot camera (several different models over the years), flash off, but with sufficient light aimed at the tube face. My shots were all blurry until I got sufficient light on the subject. It did help that all the tubes were "loose" since I have never sold a complete projector.

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Huh. I never had that much trouble with my POS P&S camera -- just point & shoot.

How close are you shooting? If you're getting up close, are you using macro mode? See p. 20 of the owner's manual.

That camera doesn't have manual focus so you can't do that. Make sure you don't have any fancy features like "Face Detect" turned on (p. 26).

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 8:42 am Post subject:

EC's probably on the right track there. See what the minimum focusing distance for the lens is and then take secstate's advice and add a little light so the camera can focus. Once it's focused and holding you can turn the light off.

Elaine Benes · Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 1416

Thanks very much for all the direction, I think it was a lack of light, I turned on the flash(even though I was worried about it washing out the actual tube face) and voila, magically I could take a focused picture !
Point and shoot is great IF it all works the way its supposed to....if not, it becomes a nightmare !
This Olympus was bought to replace an old 3.2MP one which has a few dead pixels, but THAT one could be put in "semi-auto" mode where you could pick things like the exposure and/or shutter speed, etc., then the camera would figure out the other details needed to make a good exposure. Making decent pictures with it was a LOT easier, if not for the dead pixels, I'd still be using it...