Guide to Troubleshooting Smartphone Camera Focus Issues and Blur Problems for Sharp and Clear Photos

25 common Photography problems and how to fix them

Whether youre a complete beginner or a seasoned pro, chances are that you still encounter one of many common photography problems.

Fortunately, for every photography problem, there is a photographic solution and with that in mind weve put together a selection of common faults and equally common fixes to solve any creative headaches.

Once youve undertaken our solutions for common photography problems, youll be armed with a mental tool kit with which to find a speedy fix from herein on simplifying your shoots and saving valuable time when it comes to your imaging workflow.

So, take a detailed read of our problem solving tips and tricks; after all, forewarned is forearmed!

1. My photos are all blurred

Your photos are blurred because your camera was unable to accurately focus on the subject. There can be several reasons for this either there was insufficient light for the cameras auto focus system, or the same low light situation amplified any camera shake resulting from you trying to take an image in insufficient light, without the steadying influence of a tripod.

Alternatively, if youre shooting swift moving subjects, the shutter speed youre using may be too slow and you need to switch to burst (continuous) mode, or, if lighting is really the issue, make use of artificial flash, or bump up the cameras ISO light sensitivity settings to ISO1600 or above to attempt to resolve the issue.

If you were focusing manually through the viewfinder, perhaps the cameras dioptric adjustment wheel needs adjusting to provide a clear image via which you can determine accurate focus in the first place. Most digital cameras now also provide an enlarged portion of the image on the rear LCD screen when youre attempting to manual focus further aiding accuracy and avoiding blur.

If the problem is because you're shooting a subject very far away with a very long zoom lens, then make sure the cameras and/or the lens built in image stabilisation option is activated to minimise any blur. And, again, use a tripod!

2. The colors in my photos look wrong

The most common solution to this very common photography problem comes down to finding the correct white balance setting for both camera and subject.

Most of us will be aware that tungsten/artificial lighting lends a warm orange glow to shots. So, if youre shooting indoors without flash and bumping up the ISO settings to compensate and avoid blur, youll be left with orange-y images.

Fine, if thats the look youre going for, but if its a more natural look youre after, simply drill into your cameras menu of white balance settings and select the icon that most closely resembles a common light bulb and try the shot again with this compensatory mode selected.

Youll also find settings on your camera for a variety of artificial and natural lighting conditions including strip lighting, natural daylight (which can, conversely, lend photographs a cool blue color cast), cloudy days and so on. Youll probably also find a few specific night-time settings.

Or alternatively there is often the chance to achieve a custom white balance achieved simply by holding up a piece of white paper in front of the lens. Simply experiment with white balance settings until you find the look and colors youre after.

3. Everyone in my photos has red eyes

Unless its the morning after a particularly heavy night, the most likely culprit is the cameras built-in flash, especially when its located very close to the camera lens. The red eye effect is therefore caused by the subjects eyes reflecting the artificial light from the flash back into the camera lens giving that very unnatural look.

Fortunately, this age old problem is less common than it once was, due to most modern cameras offering a red eye reduction setting amongst the user selectable flash settings that takes two flashes in quick succession. We cant do anything about subjects with their eyes shut however although software has been written for cameras to recognise when this has occurred and flag it up to the user.

Simply re-take the shot and hope for second (or third time lucky). Actually thats one catchall solution: take as many shots as you can and youre bound to end up with one you're happy with.

4. My images look very grainy and noisy

This will be due to the fact that the camera has automatically selected a high sensitivity setting to compensate for lack of light or lack of available flash, in an attempt to limit and hopefully avoid image blur/camera shake.

The trade off for reducing blur is that image grain also referred to as image noise can visibly intrude into our images, particularly on those cameras with physically smaller sensors already burdened with a high pixel count / resolution.

To avoid the ugly, grainy look, manually select a lower ISO setting (less than ISO1600, say) and compensate by placing the camera on a flat steady surface instead of attempting to use it hand held. Best still, of course, employ the use of a tripod and put the camera on self-timer when shooting so youre not having to physically press the shutter release button and thereby perhaps avoid introducing blur via the fact youre jogging the camera.

Grainy images are less of a problem for more sophisticated cameras with physically larger sensors and/or more modest resolutions, as there are less pixels crammed into a smaller space, so theyre less visible when the sensor is pushed to its performance limits.

5. My photos are either too dark or too bright

The easiest way to remedy this particular photography problem is to drill into your cameras exposure compensation settings usually given in increments of +/- 3 EV, though some can extend to +/- 5 EV.

Commonly, we get the most natural results when these settings are on the median of 0, but on a very sunny day, and if youre using a bright/ fast lens (say f/1.8, the lower the number, the more light the lens will let in) then it may work best to dial down these settings to minus 1 or lower in other words aiming for a darker exposure than normal to compensate for the fact that lighting conditions are outwardly brighter than usual.

The same works in reverse if the lighting is darker than youd like. In these circumstances you can go for a brighter setting of +1 or +2. Fortunately, a lot of modern digital cameras show the effects of such exposure compensation adjustments in real time on your cameras rear LCD screen (or electronic viewfinder), so you can see the effects your adjustments may have before you even squeeze off a shot. This allows you to toggle back and forth between the incremental exposure comp settings offered until you find the sweet spot for a correctly exposed image.

6. The sky is too bright in my shots, or the foreground is too dark

Here the cameras own well-intentioned metering system is either causing the problem, or it's the direction and angle of your set up itself. Simply put, if you point the camera at a very bright sky, it will automatically adjust the exposure to compensate, throwing whatever is in the foreground into shadow.

Conversely, if you focus the camera on whatever is in the foreground on a very sunny day, the sky will appear burnt out, or much brighter than it already is. Either way, you will lose detail in the sky.

A way around this is to try taking the same shot from a different angle, with the light in front of your subject so it shines directly on it rather than behind it, where it is effect causing your subject to be silhouetted, or thrown into shed. Another trick is to force the camera to fire its flash, even though, as it is a very sunny day, it wouldnt normally. This will allow the camera to meter for the bright sky, but for the flash to also illuminate whatevers in the immediate foreground, resulting in a more balanced shot.

Another way to resolve the above conundrum, if your lens set up allows for it, is to invest in a graduated neutral density or ND grad filter and attach it to your lens to compensate, or to shoot in Raw instead or JPEG and see how much extra detail you can eke from either sky or foreground in post production. Broadly speaking, underexposing the scene allows us to extract more detail, which is otherwise simply lost if the image is too bright.

7. Buildings in my photos are leaning or bowed, while people appear elongated or distorted

Shooting a subject up close with a wide angle lens setting can result in the above problems making the top, bottom and sides appear to bow out but again, unless these are the creative choices youre going for to emphasize scale or add impact and presence, perhaps then theyre easily remedied.

Simply take a couple of steps back so youre not so close to the subject. If youve a zoom lens you can also trying zooming in a bit and stepping back to compensate, and see if those leaning or converging verticals start to appear closer to how they look when viewed with our own eyes.

If you really want to get serious, and spend a lot of money into the bargain, then a compensatory tilt and shift lens, as used by the likes of architectural photographers, is another option. But try the stepping back, and/or zooming in option first and see how that changes the perspective of your shot.

Generally speaking, if you can arrive at a setting close to 35mm, or 50mm on a full frame camera, then this is near to what we perceive with our own eyes, so is good for street photography in particular, when were looking to photograph both people and buildings, and represent them in a natural and immediate visual manner.

8. Why doesnt my camera properly capture the intense colors of a sunset I can see with my own eyes?

When you point the camera at anything bright, or with a high bias of one color in particular, the camera will attempt to automatically compensate and arrive at a result that is more neutral.

This can, frustratingly, result in a rather washed out, insipid representation of one of the natural worlds greatest displays: a sunset. Here, your cameras automatic white balance setting is at least partly to blame, and, as it is a common fault at that, a lot of cameras actually include pre-optimised sunset modes to deliver more pleasing results.

If you dont have this option, however, or the colors still arent quite as youd hoped, try switching to a user-selectable daylight or sunlight white balance setting instead. You can also try activating the cameras Vivid color or picture effect option, if it has one, to boost the saturation for added drama, as well as pointing the camera at a brighter portion of the image whereby it will try to compensate by darkening the overall image before re-framing the shot. In this way you will preserve the more vivid and intense detail of the sunset that may otherwise merely appear washed out. The alternative is to dial down the exposure compensation settings manually.

9. My sporting and action images are all blurred. Why cant my camera keep up?

When it comes to auto focus options, the majority of digital cameras offer two modes: single and continuous. While single mode works best for general and static photography (whereby auto focus locks onto target with a half press of the shutter release button and maintains focus as you press the shutter release down fully to take the shot), continuous is best for moving subjects.

You can also trying using you cameras burst mode whereby the rapidity of the shots captured is increased, hopefully matching with the speed of the subject youre attempting to photograph. This helps ensure that, while you may still get a few blurred frames, there is a higher chance of a selection of them eventually being on the money in terms of a sharply focused shot.

Additionally, you can do all of the above while also panning with your camera and subject in other words following the direction of its motion to ensure that it stays within your frame, and in focus.

Allow for some trial and error and, as usual, take as many shots as you can to increase your chances of a photograph youll want to keep! Finally, another option if your camera allows an 8 megapixel still to be extracted from a 4K video sequence is to try that option. Youll have even more chance of grabbing a winning still when youre effectively shooting at up to 30fps.

10. Im using manual focus for precise control over my images, but results are hit and miss

Practice makes perfect as the old adage runs, and anticipating what your subject is going to be doing and where in the frame they are is crucial, particularly when focusing manually.

Even if you want to take back control, here digital cameras can still help out, by automatically displaying an enlarged portion of the subject on screen as a further check that everything is as precisely and sharply focused as you would hope it to be.

More sophisticated cameras also offer up something called Focus Peaking, whereby the areas of the image that are sharp are highlighted on the LCD screen and/or electronic viewfinder if the camera has one. Again, its an aid to achieving more precise results.

Fortunately with a digital camera we can zoom in and check the accuracy of focus for the image weve just taken on screen, and make further adjustments if the focus is slightly off.

11. My horizons aren't straight

The issue here is 'two legs bad, three legs good'. In other words, our own two legs are rarely as effective as using a tripod with a spirit level to make sure everything is lined up nice and accurately and moreover flat.

Luckily, an increasing number of cameras are now offering a built-in spirit level (or virtual horizon) that can be viewed on the rear LCD to ensure that horizons are straight and true a horizontal green line typically flashing on screen.

Again, if youre not sure whether youve got the horizon level or not without viewing on a screen larger than your cameras own, simply take two or three shots of the same subject while doing your level best.

12. I want to use shallow depth of field for more flattering portraiture, but find it hard to keep the crucial areas sharp

When attempting any shallow depth of field portraits whereby you keep the central portion of the image dramatically pin sharp, while subtly (or not so subtly) blurring both the foreground and background its crucially important that the eyes are the sharpest points in your image.

However, if youre using a particularly fast prime lens (very low f number / bright aperture), the area that is in focus can be so narrow that even the act of pressing the cameras shutter release can jog the focus area slightly, thereby changing the emphasis of the shot.

You can get around this by mounting the camera on a tripod and using a cable release, obviously, but a more practical solution is simply to take a higher number of images than usual, increasing the odds of getting the area that is sharply in focus exactly where you'd want it.