I recently received an Olympus Stylus 600. I have been having some problems with it, and I just wondering if anyone else has been having the same ones. For a 6 MP camera, the pictures it takes come out grainy and/or unfocused. I have been trying many different shooting modes (I have a tripod, if you were wondering), playing around with the AF, and so on. The only clear pictures it takes are macro ones. I cannot adjust the aperture or shutter speed, only the ISO. Does anyone else with this camera have the same difficulties? If not, anyone have some suggestions to help me make my images more focused?

Are you printing these photos yourself or having them professionally done? Are you inferring that they're blurred from viewing them on your monitor? It sounds to me like its not auto-focusing. If this is not selectable, then I'd say the camera is malfunctioning. It's possible that the last time it auto-focused it did so on something close (like the inside of your pocket), and that was the last time it did so. This could be why your macros are the only focused images.

I apologize for not clarifying; I was referring to viewing the pictures on a monitor. The camera is supposed to auto-focus with each shot (via depressing the shutter button halfway while pointing at what you want focused, you know the drill), are you saying there is a way to permenatly lock the focus on a certian distance?

regmar is suggesting that perhaps there is something wrong with the lens that is causing it not to focus, but instead stay focused at the one point. Im not sure if that is very likely, but definitly a posibility. I would suggest making sure the camera is acctually getting a focus. I haven't ever used your camera, but i know with the ones i have used in the same catagory it will let you take a picture even if its not focused. Cameras often have difficulty focusing in a few different senerios. The camera likes to have a line in the focus area (often a a little box). It also likes light. Some cameras have what is called an AF assist beam or lamp. From what i have understood, the beam uses some fancy stuff to line up better, while a lamp illuminates the area it is trying to focus on. So what this means for you is try give your camera a line to focus on especially in low light situations. Also see if you can find in your settings the lamp or beam and insure it is on.

As for grain, alot of cameras have crappy high iso. Alot of them are so bad it is useless to use it about 200 or 300 depending on the camera. When i had my canon powershot s200 i left it on iso 50 almost all of the time. This makes it so the shutter is alittle bit longer, but it would illimnate the grain. If i went up to 400 (the highest for that camera) it would be one huge thing of grain so i never used it. I could get away with 100 and 200 sometimes, but i never really bothered, especially if you have a tripod.

Hopefully that helps alittle.

Thank you for the suggestions.

I did some research on the matter, and I discovered that what you said about the ISO is very true for my camera; that anything above 100-200 is pretty useless to take pictures with. My camera does not have an assist lamp.

I honestly appreciate the time and effort both of you have taken to try and help me with my problem! I really haven't had too much of a chance to try out these things, so I am not sure if they are the solution to the problem or not. Regardless, your words are a big help in shedding some light on the issues.

If anyone else has advice or suggestions (particularily if you have owned this camera), please tell me, I really would like to solve this issue!

Make sure the green lamp stops blinking before you press the shutter button past the halfway position. Do not use digital zoom. Do you have any sample photos to show?

I know better than to use digital zoom, I've seen how quickly it can butcher an image! I am not sure if I have let the green lamp stop blinking or not, but I will watch for that next time I'm out taking shots. As for sample photos, the picture "Old Barn, Photo 2" in my gallery (viewed at full resolution) is a perfect example of how the camera does not really focus on anything in the image clearly. If you need additional examples, please let me know as soon as possible. I have many, many photos that are not seemingly up to par with a 6 megapixel camera.

I have an Olympus c3030 from five years ago, and it autofocuses very well, so I doubt the company would introduce a camera that has a worse autofocus than an older model.