# Digital Camera Excessive Pixilation - suggestions? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 18, 2006, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digital-camera-excessive-pixilation-suggestions/365072 "2006-07-18T22:36:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digital-camera-excessive-pixilation-suggestions/365072/21 "2006-07-19T16:30:24Z")
[“Pixelation”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixelation) causes a mosaic pattern. I’m not seeing that here. > [@Telemark](#): > > The middle one looks out of focus, the top one has too slow a shutter speed to freeze the action. I think the top one is out of focus too. i don’t see a directional blur, just a lack of sharpness. Admittedly this is a difficult situation to get the focus correct - the best way is to pre-focus at something roughly the same distance, and use focus lock. (That is, point the camera at something at the correct distance, press the shutter halfway down, then compose and take the photo.) Either that or use manual focus, or use a small aperture. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digital-camera-excessive-pixilation-suggestions/365072/22 "2006-07-19T18:16:28Z")
[QUOTE=fessie] It was a picture of my dh tossing our dd into the air, which is probably not the easiest thing to photograph, but this is the problem I keep seeing. [/QUOTE] Part of the problem in that shot is probably excessive cropping and then resizing. Given that he’s taking a photo of your DD “flying”, it is unlikely that he actually took the shot as composed. He’s probably cropped one similar to the first photo. He’s cropped too much and there just isn’t enough detail available for it to ever look any good. Of course, part of being a “good photographer” is not showing anyone your bad photos! He would be best just to keep the bad photos to himself, then your impression of his photographic skills may change. ---
**Author:** ![Hodge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Hodge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hodge)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digital-camera-excessive-pixilation-suggestions/365072/23 "2006-07-19T18:31:12Z")
[QUOTE=fessie] He actually took all 3 of those photos – I thought the first one turned out pretty well. The colors on the last one creep me out. [/QUOTE] There’s a bit of a reddish colour cast in the third photo than can be corrected in Elements using the “Auto Colour Correction” command under the “Enhance” menu. Of the 3 photos on your page, only first one still has the EXIF info intact, but that offers a bit of a clue. The colour is good but it’s definitely out of focus. It’s not motion blur because, according to the EXIF, shutter speed was 1/1000th of a second which is much faster than necessary to freeze motion. However, the ISO sensitivity is listed at 200. That’s too high for a consumer level P&S camera and will usually result in photos with very high levels of noise. He’ll get much better quality photos if he sets it to the minimum ISO setting of 50. It’s possible that he’s trying to reduce this noise in Elements which can also result in a loss of detail. The second photo appears to show signs of close cropping combined with noise reduction. ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digital-camera-excessive-pixilation-suggestions/365072/24 "2006-07-19T18:41:36Z")
Thanks for all the comments! **Hodge** , that’s interesting, I’ll ask him about the ISO. I’m sure I killed the EXIF info when I shrunk those pix to fit the format of that website. Sorry about not following your flickr suggestion – I just didn’t have the patience to go through the signup this morning. Yes, I agree **“Death Ray”** – the trick is definitely knowing when to show 'em & when to fold 'em! I throw out a dozen drawings for each one I keep. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digital-camera-excessive-pixilation-suggestions/365072/25 "2006-07-19T20:13:04Z")
[QUOTE=Hodge] However, the ISO sensitivity is listed at 200. That’s too high for a consumer level P&S camera and will usually result in photos with very high levels of noise. [/QUOTE] Not true anymore. The Fuji F-30 for example takes very nice shots at 800 and sometimes up to 1600. But the camera used for these shots is best used at 50 or 100 only. This may cause the shutter to remain open longer in low light situations, so it’s difficult to get good low light action shots. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digital-camera-excessive-pixilation-suggestions/365072.md?page=1)