Can't take pic when nothing to focus on

Imposter

Newbie alert and probably a stupid question

I've got an Olympus E520 and can't seem to take pictures in most modes when there is nothing to focus on.

Point at a plain wall in auto or manual mode. Auto focus does it's thing and then no pic is taken.
Same thing happened when trying to take a pic of a rainbow. Lots of sky where the 3 main focus points are and again I couldn't take a picture.

If I try taking it in sports mode I can take the picture.

So what am I doing wrong? Is there some 'feature' I need to turn off or is this normal?

TelePaul

Use manual focus.

oeb

Imposter wrote: »

Newbie alert and probably a stupid question

I've got an Olympus E520 and can't seem to take pictures in most modes when there is nothing to focus on.

Point at a plain wall in auto or manual mode. Auto focus does it's thing and then no pic is taken.
Same thing happened when trying to take a pic of a rainbow. Lots of sky where the 3 main focus points are and again I couldn't take a picture.

If I try taking it in sports mode I can take the picture.

So what am I doing wrong? Is there some 'feature' I need to turn off or is this normal?

If manual focus is too much of a pain for you try focusing on something that is a similar distance away and locking focus. Then point it at the object you can not focus on and click.

On nikon cameras you either lock focus by keeping the button half way down, or by holding the AF-L button after focus is achieved.

I don't know about Cannon, never used one.

duffarama

Imposter wrote: »

Newbie alert and probably a stupid question

I've got an Olympus E520 and can't seem to take pictures in most modes when there is nothing to focus on.

Point at a plain wall in auto or manual mode. Auto focus does it's thing and then no pic is taken.
Same thing happened when trying to take a pic of a rainbow. Lots of sky where the 3 main focus points are and again I couldn't take a picture.

If I try taking it in sports mode I can take the picture.

So what am I doing wrong? Is there some 'feature' I need to turn off or is this normal?

I think you need a bit of a read of the manual, rather than using manual focus.

You have a number of focussing options on the "super control panel" which you can access by clicking ok and moving the cursor around. Change your AF to C-AF or S-AF, S is for spot and will focus where the red light blinks. C-AF will help you to take a photo in the sky or of a landscape (no blink, as far as I can recall, haven't used my Olympus for a while...)

Then the focus points, move the cursor around to a symbol liek this [ ] and make sure it looks like this [***] only with dot's instead of *'s.

That should help you out!!

Also if you don't see this info on the rear display press info until you do, then press it again for more info.

Imposter

duffarama wrote: »

I think you need a bit of a read of the manual, rather than using manual focus.

You have a number of focussing options on the "super control panel" which you can access by clicking ok and moving the cursor around. Change your AF to C-AF or S-AF, S is for spot and will focus where the red light blinks. C-AF will help you to take a photo in the sky or of a landscape (no blink, as far as I can recall, haven't used my Olympus for a while...)

Then the focus points, move the cursor around to a symbol liek this [ ] and make sure it looks like this [***] only with dot's instead of *'s.

That should help you out!!

Also if you don't see this info on the rear display press info until you do, then press it again for more info.

Thanks all.

The focus was set to S-AF. I tried MF and C-AF against a wall and they both take the photos.

I read a bit of the manual too - There's so many controls on the camera but gradually I'm getting the hang of them.

The S-AF and the focus points [...] I've been playing with before.

duffarama

Excellent!!

Best of luck and happy shooting