Focus problems on close subjects

[R Ku]

Hello Everybody,

I am novice user to any kind of camera. I recently bought
my G2.

I am having trouble taking pictures of subjects very
close, for example when I take pictures of the insides of
a flower, I get a very hazy picture.

Is there a minimum distance I should be maintain?
If I do that, the zoom does not take me where I want
to go.

Also, any tips on taking pictures of moving subjects,
without flash and low light. For example, when I take
pictures of people subjects in the house without flash
and just the normal room lighting, I get hazy pictures,
if I use the flash the intensity of the flash is too much
and the subject comes out too bright and I get ghost
images.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I could send my
pictures if any one is interested.

Thanks a ton in advance.

Sincerely,
R K

[dynesaur]

Try using the macro button when focusing very close subjects.

[mwrr]

Re the closeup issue. As another poster said, use the macro mode. Without the macro mode, the G2 can focus down to 2.3 feet. In macro mode, it will focus down to 2.4 inches (full wide angle) and 7.9 inches (full zoom). If you need to get closer than that you'll need a supplementary close-up lens (see lensmateonline.com).

Shooting moving subjects with low light and no flash is really asking for blurry images. The shutter speed has to be slow to allow enough light in to get capture the image. The best you can do is set the ISO to 400 and use aperature priority exposure (f2 or f2.5) which will result in the fastest shutter speed for the light. It may or may not be fast enough. ISO 400 will add a lot of noise to your image. But you can remove most of that with a program called NeatImage.

[dynesaur]

Where did you get your copy of NeatImage? Is there a site where I can download a freeware version of NeatImage online?