I have an Olympus d-600l and I am having a terrible time taking photos in low light. The camera will not take the picture unless the light is right. I have learned that you have to focus on a bright object and then the flash will work but then the photo is blurry unless you use a tripod. I dont always have a tripod in my back pocket. Why doesnt the flash take care of low lighting? What can I do to fix this? Are all digital camera like this or just Olympus?

-- Connie Petty (pettyc@webdgn.com), December 21, 1999

Answers

It sounds like the camera won't fire until it locks the focus. By focusing on a bright object, you lock the focus so you can then re- compose the shot and take it with the flash. The duration of the flash should be short enough to eliminate blur from movement so I would guess that the distance of your subject is different than the distance of the bright object you focused on. Try the same approach with subjects of equal distance to see if this corrects the problem.

-- Dennis Pereira (dpereira@ultranet.com), January 06, 2000.