When my Nikon D3000 is set on Auto, the shutter speed is too slow, and images are out of focus. Can anyone help me with this problem?
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4Do you have any examples of this that can be shown? Please include the shutter speed, f/stop, ISO, and lens. – Dec 07 '14 at 02:17
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How much light is in the scene? Is the exposure correct? What do you think should happen instead? – mattdm Dec 07 '14 at 05:18
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These are two separate issues. Slow shutter results in motion blur/camera shake blur. Out of focus results in optical blur and incorrect focus plane. – TFuto Dec 08 '14 at 12:36
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Generally speaking, to get proper exposure, you need a certain amount of light. If the light levels are low—say indoors or at night—then you have to compensate for that somehow. If your lens is limited on aperture (say, you're using the 18-55 kit lens at 55mm, so your maximum aperture is limited only to settings of f/5.6 or smaller), your auto ISO is limited to lower settings (say, below 1600), and you've turned the flash off, then the only way you can get more light is to use a longer shutter speed. And the shutter speed that will work for exposure may not be one that you can handhold without having a lot of motion blur from camera shake (say, longer than 1/30s), and you may need to stabilize the camera with a tripod.
You can force the camera to use a faster shutter speed by shooting in M or S modes, and explicitly setting a faster shutter speed, but you will probably have an underexposed image unless you adjust with the ISO or aperture to compensate for the faster shutter speed, and you may not be able to, if you're already maxed out on both.
In low light, as well, autofocus will struggle. The camera needs good light to focus by, and will search in low light. You can compensate for this by shining more light on the subject you want to focus on, using the autofocus assist.
See also: What is the "exposure triangle"?
