I spent a little more time today experimenting with the new Fugi S9500W camera I got for Xmas. The noisy photos I have been taking have frustrated me. I have also been having problems getting the camera to even focus on birds in trees. This camera has no manual focus capabilities. I have managed to get some shots by pre-focusing on the bird feeder and then swinging the camera to a bird in the tree the feeder hangs from. This works sometimes but it is a hit and miss proposition to have the focus distances being equal. Today I discovered a method that works much much better. I had set the camera to macro mode while I was shooting Dragonflies and forgot to turn the macro off while shooting birds a bit later. I spotted a bird in the feeder tree and when zoomed in on it, I found that the camera would focus on the subject. Woo Hoo! This lets me move back to about 35-40' from the feeder and get better shots than when I sat just 10' away and did not use the macro mode. This also allowed a lot more birds to feel safer with using the feeder. I am not sure why the macro mode helps the camera lock in on the subject. I am not even sure what happens to the camera settings and/or software instructions when macro mode is used. My thanks to those who have taken the time to comment. The feedback is appreciated. Lee