My mother has a Toshiba PDR-M5. Most of the pictures are fine but at least ten percent of them are not focused well. Does anybody else have this problem? All pictures have been shot in automatic mode.

-- Randy Weivoda (Rweivoda@cs.com), May 09, 2000

Answers

Three things to check. These probably aren't your problem, but if they are. . .

1) Make sure you're not in Macro mode. The camera may continue to autofocus fairly well even if the target is at a greater distance than macro is intended for, but it may screw up randomly.

2) If the lighting is iffy, the camera often focuses incorrectly.

3) Make sure you have the updated firmware (v2.08, I think). It fixed several problems and if you happen to have an early camera which hasn't been updated, it may take care of you.

Other than these, there are the obvious problems of a very small or off-center target, with a more distant background which is attracting the camera's attention. Or a distant target, with some sort of screen between you and it. But I'm sure you wouldn't be stumped by that.

Last suggestion - see if you can't find a particular class of shots which are a problem. Daylight? Indoor? Flash? Intermediate distance? Action shots? Etc.

-- Mark Grebner (Mark@Grebner.com), May 10, 2000.

While I like my PDR-M5, and very much like it's low light performance in terms of at what light level it can produce an image, it does SEEM to have a low light level focusing problem under certain circumstances. There, I've gone and said it -admitted a chink in my camera's armor. The shame of it all. :-) "Hi, my name is Gerald, and my camera has a focusing problem..."

NOTE: focusing problems should not be confused with "faux cussing problems" which are typified by using terms such as "darn" or "danged". If you're going to cuss, use the proper terminology and be creative, we all need entertainment...

The PDR-M5 seems to have the most trouble under low light situations with little contrast like a not very well lit room. That's not surprising since it uses a contrast based focusing algorithm. Night scenes, taken in bulb mode, with street lights, for instance, seem to be fine.

There's a downloadable firmware upgrade which is designed to help fix the problem. Have a look at:

http://www.toshiba.com/taisisd/isd_svc/svcdsc/m5v207.htm

Read the instructions and check the firmware version currently installed by:

"Attaching the AC Adapter to the camera, and turning the mode dial to SET UP mode. Move the cursor to DEFAULT, choose OK from the selection mode, and press the ENTER button. This will return the camera to factory settings..." -It'll also display the current firmware version and can be done before installing the upgrade. :-)

Some people "said" they had to install the new firmware more than once in some other forum's messages that I read. The check mentioned above should display Version 2.08 after the install and is lifted from Toshiba's installation instructions.

This will definitely help, but may not completely fix the problem.

Good Luck.

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@francomm.com), May 10, 2000.

I performed a few informal tests tonight. Oddly enough, it seems that the camera occasionally focuses better without the flash popped up than with it... This has me somewhat stumped.

What I did was set the camera on the arm of a sofa and take a few shots in a 12x16 room lit only by a lamp placed behind and above the camera. All shots were taken with the self timer set to 10 seconds to minimize camera shake. The odd part is that a shot taken with available light was focused well enough that I could make out writing on an ink cartridge box that sat on a table about 8 feet away. The shot was fairly dark, but consistent with the room lighting. The same shot taken with timer and FLASH was BADLY blurred... I'm at a complete loss to explain this except as a bug.

I thought most of the problems that people were reporting after the firmware upgrade were due to camera shake, but this informal testing seems to indicate there is a bug in the algorithm when flash is being used.

Can anyone else confirm these results, preferrably with a tripod... It's late and I'm not up to any more fiddling tonight. If so, perhaps we need to contact Toshiba and point out this specific problem.

The 2.08 firmware definitely helps, but there seems to be another not so obvious problem now. Fellow PDR-M5 owners, please chime in and check this out with your own units and give me some feedback. Maybe we can pitch in and convince Toshiba of a specific problem and get a better product for both us and them. I do love the idea of upgradeable firmware!

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@francomm.com), May 10, 2000.