4 year old Canon S400 goin bad?

[Newport Viper]

They are getting blurry checked settings on Auto seem fine.

Any experts?

[Five Star]

is the little red focus assist light coming on?
there are settings in the setup menu that may have gotten changed

are the little green focus squares highlighting on the LCD?

you can always try it in manual mode

[STG]

Autofocus is NEVER 100% reliable. Does it focus better in brighter light?

If you are using the camera in auto-mode, it decides exposure and aperature. The camera may have picked an exposure that was long enough to pickup you hands shaking. (Unavoidable at +- 1/30 second or longer).

Experiment with your camera in aperature mode for stationary objects and shutter priority mode for moving objects.

If you can, please post the original photo so I can see the data imbedded in the photo relating to camera settings.

Contrast is needed for the camera to focus. My Nikon DSLR and pro quality Nikon lenses have troblr focusing on smooth, shiney surfaces (chrome, paint, etc.) My guess is that's what happened.

[STG]

I played around in Photoshop.

Here's your original:



With Unsharp added and a little D-Lighting via Nikon's Capture software:

[Five Star]

why is all the EXIF data gone?

[farmboy]

I would call the company if you are have troubles. I have a six year old Sony that the screen blacked out on. My wife called the company and complained and they emailed us a UPS ticket to ship it in. They repaired it for free, not even a shipping charge. I had no receipt or anything. My wife has had our coffee machine, vacuum, various baby toys, and the camera all fixed at no charge just by calling the company.

[STG]

At this point, he doesn't know if there is anything wrong with his camera.

[Krazy Ken]

Originally posted by farmboy
I would call the company if you are have troubles. I have a six year old Sony that the screen blacked out on. My wife called the company and complained and they emailed us a UPS ticket to ship it in. They repaired it for free, not even a shipping charge. I had no receipt or anything. My wife has had our coffee machine, vacuum, various baby toys, and the camera all fixed at no charge just by calling the company.

It's always worth a try calling the manufacturer. After all the squecky (spelling?) wheel gets the grease.

[STG]

Chances are it's operator error. How about trying to take the photo again?

Nah, that's too complicated and takes much more time and money than packing and shipping the camera to the service center.

Without seeing the EXIF data, we don't know if the camera didn't focus or if the shutter speed was slow enough to pick up handshake. EVEN IF IT DIDN'T FOCUS, it may not be a problem with the camera. The owner's manual should have a section on how autofocus works and what conditions are less than optimum for it.

The original photo with the embedded data needs to be posted.

[STG]

The S400 manual states:

Page 64

It may be difficult to focus on the following types of subjects. use the focus lock in these situations.

Subjects with extremely low contrast to the surroundings

Subjects with extremely bright iobjects at the center of the composition


Addtionally, dpreview.com found the following:

* Annoyingly small and stiff mode dial
* Noise at ISO 100 worse than the competition *
* Lens can be soft at maximum aperture, especially in corners
* AF assist lamp didn't produce significantly better results in our test
* Average macro performance (distortion because optimum is at wide angle)
* Slight chromatic aberrations at or around maximum aperture
* Moderately underexposed flash shots
* Jagged diagonals visible on resolution chart, although not yet seen in 'every day' shots
* Very few manual controls for the money


LENS CAN BE SOFT AT MAXIMUM APERTURE