Ixus 400 focusing on background

[MrSweet]

I´ve tried all the differant types of focuses... but some how 50% of my photos are focused on the background instead of the object I´m trying to focus on. I don´t really like the AiAF, because it takes to long to catch focus of the right thing.

It often happens when I´m taking indoor photos with flash, the cam focuses on the back wall.

Please help. I´ve had my cam for about 2 month now and it´s great, except for this..

//M

[stduc]

I have the same problem with my A70 and my A20 was worse. In dull light (indoors, overcast day etc) they don't seem to get enough contrast to focus on. I can offer the following partial solutions.

1. Turn of AiAf (only useful I've found outside in high contrast bright patches with deep show situations)

2. Point the camera so that the subject you want in focus is exactly in the centre of the screen or viewfinder.

3. Half press the shutter button to lock focus and hold

4. Recompose and shoot.

If that fails - on the A70 I set the camera to Av mode and fix the aperture at the hightest (largest f no.) it will take without flashing a red -2 at me. When taking some closeups using my tripod though I once had to resort to printing a black and white checkerboard on some A4 paper and placing that in front of the subject briefly whilst I set the focus!

[MrSweet]

Thanks!
I´ll try that.
/M

[babrahamsen]

Thanks for starting this thread. I am very disappointed with the focusing I get using my Ixus 400 - in fact I still think I get sharper pictures with the old S10 in most cases. The depth on the S10 seemed better under equal conditions, and this almost made up for the much lower resolution. Still, I am sure that the 400 is capable of far better pictures and welcome all suggestions. True enough, it seems to perform slightly better with AiAF off, but I still get blurred pictures on all but the sunniest of days!
Who designed the software? Some surfer in California, by all accounts...

[atotos]

I have tried with AiAf on and it works well if in Manual Mode you use it with either Macro or Infinity. When you do it, focusing on your selected object is perfect. ;)