Blurry picture if zoom is used - Canon PowerShot SX100 IS Digital Camera

I'm out of practice because my camera suddenly stopped working 6 months ago, but I don't recall having a problem with blurry pictures when I used the zoom. Sometimes, it takes a few seconds for a pic to come into clear focus. I think the trick is to just keep working with it.

Make sure you hold the camera steady .It has been my experience that if you hands arent steady your going to get a blurry pictures and also it will look blurry in the LCD window.

Usually they will go blurry if the photo resolution is too low.
You can only zoom in to detail that is actually there, then it will just blur or pixelate

Very dirty lens,
damaged lens (is it blurry at all zoom levels or just at one extreme or other?)
Quality settings in camera set to very low.

When I turn my camera on, the lens goes in and out a few times. Once it's finally on and I look at the screen, everything is blurry. When I take the picture, it's blurry too. If I try to use the zoom to adjust, the lens starts going in and out all crazy and won't adjust right.

if you take pictures on digital zoom, the picture quality may not be acceptable. Try don’t use digital zoom.
digital zoom is not really zoom, it just enlarge a portion of the image, thus 'simulating' optical zoom. That is why you lose image quality on digital zoom.

Your zoom probably does not come out all the way and therefore you get some blurry shots. Had the same problem on a Panasonic camera. Solution: replace zoom motor and gears. Results=expensive. Goes beyond the value of the camera. You might want to buy another used A85 or newer digital camera.

make sure there is no fingerprints on the lens glass

it could be a few things like dust on your lens when you took an auto picture and it could have blown off from movement make sure your lens is clean, check your lens settings on the side if it is on the flower its for close up pictures and if its on the trees its for further away pictures so make sure its on the correct setting also pc cams only have digital zoom so if you zoom in it may appear to be blurry because it only zooms in on the picture which is made up of pixels as opposed to an optical lens which zooms in on the actual object so its not as blurry also check your menu settings mabey you messed something up, also remember to keep the camera still when taking pictures they are not that advanced. and if non of that works just use manual.

You're both right. The pictures are blurry because the shutter speed is too slow, but it's too slow because there isn't enough light for it to be faster. Try this: Set the ISO to 800 Set the camera at shutter priority mode, and enter 1/160 for wide angle to mid-zoom, and 1/400 for full zoom. If the pictures come out too dark ( and you're too far to use the flash ), you can always brighten them on the computer. But if they're blurry, you can't really fix that.