Auto mode focus selection sometimes not logical

[ron44]

I just purchased a refurbrished ELPH 330 and am trying its many settings.  In auto mode the camera sometimes seems to select objects (no people in scene) to focus on that aren't logical.  For example, if I have a plant on a table with a piece of paper in the foreground or background, it seems to select the paper rather than the plant even if the camera is centered on the plant.  I also don't understand why sometimes it has a white focus frame around an object that turns green when the shutter is half presses, and sometimes it doesn't have a white fucus frame and when I press the shutter half way a single or multiple green frames will appear.  Without the white focus frame there doesn't appear to be any point or points of focus. 

It appears to me that auto mode works best for people and not other objects.  Am I correct?

[cicopo]

In my opinion AUTO is pretty much designed for those you hand the camera to so they can take YOUR photo. They obviously wouldn't know how to use it properly, have read the manual nor necessarily know ANYTHING about photography. It isn't the setting a photographer would use when trying to capture a specific scene unless it was as basic as it gets..

[ron44]

I agree, I guess I will be in P mode most of the time. It just seems to me that Canon could have designed the logic for Auto setting better. Something simple like if it can't detect people it uses center focus with scenes applied. I have no idea what it is doing if there aren't any people in the scene. That spoils the experience.

[smack53]

Cameras such as the ELPH are trying to select a scene mode automatically in Auto mode, so all that hunting can cause multiple focus points to be evaluated for the scene. By selecting a particular scene mode, you will reduce the chance of a misdirected focus point, but you won't eliminate it. The best way is to use the camera in manual focus mode where you take control of the focus point and set the distance to focus. However, on a compact point and shoot such as the ELPH, that can be a bit tedious and slow, and you risk losing the shot. Another thing that you could do that works faster is to focus on something about the distance away of the object you want focusing on by pressing the shutter button halfway, hold that and recompose to the shot you want, and press the shutter the rest of the way to take the shot. That should help immensely to get more of what you want, and not what the camera decides to give you.

Steve M.

[ron44]

Thanks for your response. I have had a chance to thoroughly play with the camera and have come to the following conclusions. Cannon designed the Auto setting for this camera for family photography. In auto mode it works well for family shots and portraits. The auto setting appears to use the Face AiAF focus method that is selectable in P mode. This works very well at detecting faces to focus on, but for scenes not including people it doesn't work well. When taking a picture of a scene in Auto mode it tends to select areas of high contrast to focus on, which can be far from what you want. As I explained in my initial post example, it focused on a piece of white paper in the foreground, not the plant in the middle of the frame that I wanted to focus on. I bought this camera for photography of scenes of places that I am now traveling to. This means that I will be using the P mode with center focus enabled. This works well and the camera should work well for my purposes. I just don't understand why Canon designed the logic of Smart Auto the way that they did. If the camera can't detect people it should change the focus method to the center method or they should have added an option in the menu to enable this. As it sits now when in auto mode the focus is unreliable for scenes. For a few side notes, in auto mode the backlit, dark and sunset modes are rarely enabled, even if you are shooting in extreme conditions that should warrent their selection. Also, when using the flash in Auto mode the pictures sometimes have a warm yellow tinge to them. It appears that the Auto White Balance selection is messing up. I suspect that when in Auto mode the camera is trying to adjust for face colors, even if there aren't any faces in the picture. This doesn't happen in P mode with center weight focus selected as the Auto White Balance appears to work well. For my purposes I will be shooting primarily in P mode.

[smack53]

Interesting that you comment on the white balance being on the warm side with the flash. Most of the people I know with this camera praise the accuracy of the color, except the one with the refurbished model. In theory, the camera is designed to set colors by using 18% gray as the standard, not face colors. I think that when they refurbished the camera, they may have set that incorrectly.

As for the Auto and Smart Auto modes, I have too many frustrations with any of the manufacturers auto scene modes. P mode is an improvement, but I use the manual mode 99% of the time. (That includes the Tv and Av modes). I set the custom white balance and if using the flash, I make sure the White Balance is set to flash. I'm not sure if the ELPH 330 has such a setting, but if it does, I would use that. Auto White Balance is usually good, but not always as accurate as I like, so I try and use one that is closest to the conditions I'm shooting in. Another thing that affects the white balance is what settings you are using under the mycolors option. I would turn the option off when using flash as the other color options can override the Auto White Balance and give some weird colors. That might help with the warmer colors you are getting. It helped me on my A series Canon camera.

By the way, you can change the metering method in all but the Auto and Smart Auto modes on the ELPH 330. One thing you will find out on this forum is that you will never get the full potential out of the camera until you get away from the Auto modes. They just don't measure up, so I would stay with the P mode and graduate from there. I think you'll have much more enjoyment from the camera that way. That is one reason I like the Canon compact cameras is that I can get just about full manual control over the camera and capture the images the way I want them to be. Many of the others don't give you enough full control, and rely heavily on scene modes. Have fun and I hope you work out the bugs.

Steve M.

[ron44]

Smack53, unfortunately the ELPH 330 doesn't have manual mode. P mode does give some flexibility. You must have a higher end camera than the 330. What one do you have?

[smack53]

I have 3 Canon cameras: A510, SX150 IS, and G12. The A510 was my first digital camera, and it has full manual control as well as P mode, Av mode (Aperture), Tv Mode (Shutter). This camera is from 2005, and is feature rich. I thought it would be similar to your ELPH camera, but I downloaded the manual for the 330 and I see that you don't get all the controls that were on the A-series cameras, which are considered the low end for Canon. That's too bad, because it sounds like you want to get a lot more out of your camera.

The SX150 IS camera is a bit higher end than the ELPH series. The newest version of mine is the SX170, and they have full manual control as well as all the "easy mode" stuff. While they are not great cameras, they are well worth the price and you can get some pretty awesome photos with them. You can look at my Flickr page at https://www.flickr.com/photos/smack53/sets/72157632756982994/ to see what the SX150 IS is capable of. If you got to https://www.flickr.com/photos/smack53/sets/72157631405783004/ that is for my A510 camera.

The G12 is much more of an enthusiast level camera with all the bells and whistles, and is my favorite camera. The newest version is the G16, but they are pretty pricey cameras. If I were on a limited budget, I would stay with one of the SX series of cameras as you can learn an awful lot about photography with them. They take pretty nice photos in my opinion.

Steve M.