I like to take pictures up close too.

I found that generally that setting is marked by a flower, tulip looking thing. And then it allows the camera to focus really up close..

Thanks Jay, but that was the first thing I tried and as soon as I get close up, it starts to blur. It has to have something to do with the other settings but I've gone through at least 6 pair of good batteries trying everything. The manual & web site and others claim it's sooo easy!.

I don't own the S1050, but a few thoughts come to mind: 1) if you are holding the camera by hand you might be mistaking camera shake for blurriness. Try setting the camera on a stable surface (or use a tripod) and take a macro of something and see if this helps. 2) The depth of field in macro mode will likely be very shallow so you have to be much more careful about what point on your subject you are focused upon. 3) Looking at the user's guide for the camera online, the manual says to be careful when using manual focus in macro mode because it can be easy to blur the image. 4) It looks like the focus point in macro mode is the center of the screen. If you want to focus on something outside the center you should use the focus lock feature. (see pages 24 & 25 of the manual, which you can view online (HTML) or download as a PDF if you don't have the manual handy)..

Thanks, forkboy1965! You've got me on the right rode. I had been trying to hold my camera literally on top of my subject and of course the closer I got the more blurred it became! I never thought I needed to take the photo first and THEN use the close-up control on the camera. Now I need to figure out how to save the close-up! After I click ok the camera asks "trimmingyes or no." I have no idea what that means so I've tried both & still don't know what works. After downloading to my computer I found only 3 out of about 7 macros and numerous copies of the original photos..

You might also wish to consider that you are too close for the macro function to work. Your user's guide/manual should tell you what minimum distance you must be from your subject for the camera to be able to focus. In other words, you may be too close to your subject (or too far away for that matter)..

I was unaware that this could be a problemI'll try it and see what happens. Thanks for helping me with this..

You are quite welcome. I hope this solves the problem for you..