Sony Digital P200 Problem - Dark Shots No Picture

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

I was taking pictures of my dogs on my bed. I had Auto everything on,
and when I take the picture, the flash goes off, but the picture is
completely black. I found that if I hold the shoot button down halfway
I would sometimes get it to take a good picture, but 80% of the time I
was getting black picture, and about 5% I was getting way over
exposured pictures. I coudl tell the flash was either shooting really
bright, or really low, and on the black pictures it seemed like the
snap and the flash weren't even in sink.

Does this have something to do with the settings, or pressing the snap
button at a certain point during the time when your half way holding
down the snap button?

I looked through the manual and couldn't find anything on this. Any
help?

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

utseay@aol.com wrote:
> I was taking pictures of my dogs on my bed. I had Auto everything on,
> and when I take the picture, the flash goes off, but the picture is
> completely black. I found that if I hold the shoot button down
> halfway I would sometimes get it to take a good picture, but 80% of
> the time I was getting black picture, and about 5% I was getting way
> over exposured pictures. I coudl tell the flash was either shooting
> really bright, or really low, and on the black pictures it seemed
> like the snap and the flash weren't even in sink.
>
> Does this have something to do with the settings, or pressing the snap
> button at a certain point during the time when your half way holding
> down the snap button?
>
> I looked through the manual and couldn't find anything on this. Any
> help?

There is no index entry for "fur". The problem is typical of all photo
metering against fur. The metering requires feedback from the object to
the camera, and fur is almost completely absorbtive; thus, no feedback.
Take the dogs off the bed and repeat the photos. I think you'll be
pleasantly surprised.

The key to metering with fur is to meter at the same distance, but away
from the fur. ...not too fur away, though.

Q

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

utseay@aol.com wrote:
> Yeah, one of my problems was that unlike my canon s400, you have to
> wait until this camera beeps to snap the photo, which sometimes is 4-5
> seconds after it actually focuses in.
>
> I'm still getting problems with some of my photos coming out blurry.
> Any tips on keeping that from happening?

If this is fur again, autofocus has exactly the same problem. Fur don't
work as a focus target. I use manual focus if I have the time (dog is
sleeping!). Otherwise focus off-target at the same distance.

Q

Q