Ah sorry about that I 'll try and explain.
The first thing you'll have to do is switch the camera from auto, you're allowing the camera choose all its settings and it doesn't know what end result you're trying to achieve.
Try the following as a guide:
Sports mode - Use for Fast movement of any kind (This will use higher shutter speeds)
Macro mode - use this for closeups
Aperture priority (A) - Use for general landscape shots. This will allow you control the aperture, how wide the shutter opens and controls how much light gets in. It also controls the depth of field and how much is in focus. High apertures like f8 and above will have pretty much everything in focus, low apertures like f5.6 and below start to blur out background etc. Try a few shots of the same subject with different settings to see how it changes. Follow this link for a better description
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field
Happy clicking!
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