josanna, I had the same problem with my Kodak. I loved it most of the time, but the delay in taking pictures and the problems in certain lights really irked me. All of them (that I have ever used) are going to have the half-way-down-focus thing, but my new Konica is much faster at this. And it writes to the memory quicker.
With the Kodak, I used some of the manual settings when I was photographing in low light. That helped some.
With the Kodak, I used some of the manual settings when I was photographing in low light. That helped some.