Questions about the A40

[Branko_88]

Ok i have a few quesitons that i would appreciate if anyone could answer.

1. Sometimes I cant seem to focus. I press half way but it just wont focus. I dunno why?

2. The continous shoot or burst mode or whatever. How do I get this thing to work. I've done everything. Turn off the LCD and the review pics options. I turn on contiouns shoot...but it doesn't seem to work. Do i hold the shutter down or do i keep pressing or what?

3. The movie mode. Can i make longer movies. My card allows for almost a minute of movie but it stops me after a set period of time (10 seconds??)

4. The macro mode. It doesn't seem to work properly. I can't focus when im close to the object. How close should I be? 10"??? or can i go closer. It doesn't seem to focus properly.

P.S. I know about some of the focus probelems and the thing you have to download, but that is not a problem since it told me my camerea doesn't need.

Any sort of help would be appriceated. Thanks.

[JohnMN]

First things first. When you hold down the shutter release button does the camera let two beeps out of it and either the three green squares or one green square appear on the lcd? This is to let you know the focus, exposure and white balance have been set. Hold the camera as steady as you can and try not to move its position as the focal distance will have changed and make your pictures come out blurry. As I've said in earlier postings, stand about 5 to 6 feet away from whatever it is you are taking the picture of.

Haven't used the burst mode myself, look through some of the earlier postings to see if the subject is covered.

No, you can't record longer than 10 secs. When this time is up, the camera writes the file to the disc and when this is done, you can record another 10 secs. You could always stick your sequences together in a video editing program such as Arcsoft VideoImpression which I got along with my camera.

I downloaded the patch you talk about as it said my camera needed it but it doesn't focus any closer than the distance stated in the instruction manual.

JohnMN

[ThomasL]

Keep in mind that for the auto focus to function, you need sufficient light as well as some contrast in your subject. The focus assist light helps somewhat. You could try to turn off the AIAF function, and use the center AF field to focus on a part of the subject with good contrast, and leave the button halfway pressed, then rearrange and shoot.

Macro seems to work, down to about 3 or 4" (10 cm) using wide angle (5.4 mm). Again, the problem might be insufficient contrast or light.

[Conk]

Branko_88 wrote:
Ok i have a few quesitons that i would appreciate if anyone could answer.

1. Sometimes I cant seem to focus. I press half way but it just wont focus. I dunno why?

2. The continous shoot or burst mode or whatever. How do I get this thing to work. I've done everything. Turn off the LCD and the review pics options. I turn on contiouns shoot...but it doesn't seem to work. Do i hold the shutter down or do i keep pressing or what?

3. The movie mode. Can i make longer movies. My card allows for almost a minute of movie but it stops me after a set period of time (10 seconds??)

4. The macro mode. It doesn't seem to work properly. I can't focus when im close to the object. How close should I be? 10"??? or can i go closer. It doesn't seem to focus properly.



1. I have a feeling your camera isn't on the proper settings. Set your depth of focus accordingly.

2. When shooting in burst mode the sequence between shots will be longer or shorter depending on the shutter speed. On the fastest setting the camera will shoot 5 photos in 2 seconds. Part of the delay is the processing time the camera needs to load the photo to the card from it's internal memory.
3. The reason why you cannot film more than 10 seconds at a time is because that is the camera's limit in it's internal memory before processing to the cf card.
I can bet that if you change the resolution size of your video it will provide you with a few seconds more filming time. Just a guess.
4. I believe the manual says a min. of 10 inches. (going from memory here). I have had the same problem. After some practice I have noticed that extending the range to 15-20 inches was better. When shooting at the highest resolution setting the longer distance didn't matter.

Hope this helps. :)