problems focusing your digital camera

I got my Nikon Coolpix SQ to work! It had the hardest time focusing before. About 90% of the photos I took I had to focus the camera at least 5 times. Probably about 25% of the time it didn’t want to take the picture at all! Unfortunately, Andrea and I had to put up the the stupid camera all through our trip to Vegas last year.

I have been considering buying the super nice Nikon Coolpix 8800 (just in time for out trip to London) since the SQ was having serious issues. And the battery on my Sony DSC-P5 is almost dead. (A charge lasts for about 15 minutes of picture-taking).

Ironically enough, I was reading an article on the Nikon Coolpix 8800 and I thought of a way to fix the SQ. Most digital cameras have two different ways of focusing:

1. Single-shot focus: the camera will not focus until you press the main button half-way. If the camera is not focused a subject, then it will not take the picture.

2. Continuous AF: AF means Auto Focus. The camera will always focus on whatever it is pointed at.

I had the SQ set to single-shot focus all along. I guess that’s the default setting. I had to press the trigger button half way to focus on my subject. Now that doesn’t explain why it didn’t take the picture. It should have taken the picture when I was focusing.

I changed the setting to Continuous AF. Now it works. Even the AF lamp works. That’s the green light that helps illuminate subject when lighting is low. It helps the camera focus on its subject. When I had the camera in single-shot focus mode, the AF lamp would never turn on. I wonder if there is a firmware update for the SQ. hmmmm… I’ll have to check out Nikon’s site.

SIDE NOTE
I would have loved to give the link to the SQ via dpreview.com, but they never reviewed it. I find they have the best camera reviews because they will compare cameras side by side in great detail. And you could compare full-resolution photos from the camera of choice with another camera. Here’s an example of my Sony DSC-P5 (from 2001) compared to its competitor, the Nikon Coolpix 880. There’s another site that lets you manually select cameras to compare in full detail. I can’t seem to find it at this moment.

and here’s a cool 360 degrees photo taken of the SQ. Just click and drag on top of the image to make it move.