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OK you can delete it now. I have it in photoshop.

What I see is a depth of field issue. The exposed boards in the middle of the field which is what your camera probably focused on are fairly sharp. DOF is simply ACCEPTABLE field of focus. There is always an exact plane of focus. Since you are shooting on auto your camera may be shooting at f/2 or so. Put it on manual and shoot at f/8 or whatever your cams highest f number is. The higher the f number the greater the DOF.

You may need lots of light or a tripod to get a steady shot. Anything under 1/125 handheld will give camera shake (we ain't as steady as we think we are) unless you have anti-shake or image stabilization lenses. If you are using any tele than the number goes up. Ususally the reciprocal of the telephoto will give the lowest hand holdability. ie don't shoot a 250mm telephoto under 1/250th handheld.

I can also see that your camera does not like diagonal lines very much. This is a sign of an inferior processor chip. Canon with their digic II seem to do the best at processor chips these days.

Thanks for the tips. I know that it is a DOF issue. I have tried F8 and still get fuzzy pics. I have tried ISO 100, 200 and 400. They all come out about the same. But it seems that for a camera that is supposed to be pretty good quality that wouldn't be the case. The other pic with the elephant was done in auto as well.

Now I am at a loss. I wanted to be able to pring larger pictures of my two sons. Now I have to start all over again in my search. I will look into to the Canons. Canon PowerShot A95 Silver 5.0MP. This one catches my eye. What do you think? Of course the XD cards I have will be obsolete.

Thanks again for your help.