Blurry picture if zoom is used ( no Sharp mage)

You did not say which lens or lenses you are using, but most auto-focus lenses have a switch for selecting manual or auto-focus. First, check your camera's menu settings to make sure auto-focus is enabled and then your lens to make sure you did not accidently leave it in the manual focus position? If it is in the auto-focus position and still not taking sharp pictures, switch it to manual and see if you can get it to focus correctly. It is also possible that your auto-focus alignment is out because your camera was bumped, jolted or dropped. If realignment is necessary, you can send the camera and lens to Nikon for repair or find a knowledgeable camera repairman.

its likely that she may have hit the macro setting only allowing it to focus up close to objects to turn this off all you have to do is find a button that looks like a flower this could be on the arrow pad or in the menu system but it is called the Macro setting and with it turned off hopefully your pictures will be sharp again

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.

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.

Press the set button located above the menu button to erase a single picture. The set button is like an enter button on a PC

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.

Does this camera have the ability to zoom while in recording mode?