Blurry moving baby arms and legs issues - with SAMPLES

p1tse

p1tse

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taking pics of my baby boy (3 months old now), he kicks and waves his hands alot and i find alot of my pictures with a motion blur from the arms and legs moving about.

i use my d90 and 18-105vr kit lens

is there anything i can do to help reduce this?

do i need a faster glass, as i'm thinking of a tamron 28-75 f2.8
 
been doing alot in P

example of shot P 1/60 F4 ISO200 and still get his arms blurry.

but will try a quicker shutter speed
 
will try it at 1/80 and 1/100 and see how i get on
 
I'd stick it in Aperture Prio (A) and open the aperture right up to 2.8. Then I'd either go for ISO 400, it will double your shutter speed, or use the on camera flash, and you should naturally be able to get a higher shutter speed.
 
Think about the lighting conditions too, is the room relatively dark? More light allows for a faster shutter speed..
 
Sorry, I said 2.8 but read it that you already have the tamron :lol:. If F4 is the best you can get then go F4 and try an ISO of 400.
 
raise the iso and/or use a wider aperture ( I'd use aperture priority for this). That will get you your quicker shutter speed.
 
I'm no expert, but with my recently aquired sb600 i can bounce the flash off the ceiling without vapourising eyeballs etc which pretty much solves the issues of lowlight and blur without frightening kids, animals.

Doesn't help much if you only have the IB flash though, sorry.
Al
 
karmagarda said:
Sorry, I said 2.8 but read it that you already have the tamron :lol:. If F4 is the best you can get then go F4 and try an ISO of 400.
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no, i'm thinking of getting the tamron have the d90 kit lens 18-105vr only
 
seventythree said:
I'm no expert, but with my recently aquired sb600 i can bounce the flash off the ceiling without vapourising eyeballs etc which pretty much solves the issues of lowlight and blur without frightening kids, animals.

Doesn't help much if you only have the IB flash though, sorry.
Al
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sb600 is definately on the cards when i can afford to ;-(
but thinking it would solve the issue too
 
andrewc said:
Your shutter speed isn't high enough. You may need to open the aperture to let more light pass, or raise the ISO to increase sensitivity, or add light by means of flash or other means.
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think i'll go to aperature mode and open it wider

i'm not keen on board flash at all
 
get a flash and bounce it with your aperture and shutter speed set on manual. you'll freeze the action if the room is dark.

or take pics when they are alseep which is what I did lol
 
while the little one is sleeping on his play mat in the lounge i've been playing with the settings and waving my hands in front of the camera LOL

tried all sorts of A and S settings, but managed to get a still waving shot in M with F8 1/100 ISO on auto and it went to 3200! bit dark and so adjusted the exposure compensation to +0.3 and +0.7 and it seems ok for in the living room with me waving my hand LOL

wow, so much to learn and don't get a second chance with little one smiling on and off and head bobbing left, right, up and down ;-)
 
You need to increase the shutter speed.

If the baby's arms move say 2cm with a 1/60sec shutter speed, they will only move 1cm at 1/125sec, and so on. You will need to go quite high to get them sharp if that's what you want, but some motion blur is not only acceptable but sometimes desirable. Shows the lil' one's alive and kicking. You don't want blurred faces though.

You can raise the shutter speed by increasing ISO or lowering the f/number but you can only go so far with that and you're probably quite close to the limit already. The only way forward then is the raise the light level, either by moving close to a window or outside.

Or use flash. That will raise the light level and also since the flash duration is always very short (less than 1/1000sec, often less than 1/10000) you're unlikely to get any blur. You may not like the effect with flash and there are ways to change that, eg bouncing etc, but that's different question.
 
POAH said:
get a flash and bounce it with your aperture and shutter speed set on manual. you'll freeze the action if the room is dark.

or take pics when they are alseep which is what I did lol
Click to expand...

i've got quite a few of the little one sleeping, but nice to have some pics with eyes wide open direct in the camera.

think you are right, an external flash could do the trick

maybe i'll hold off buying a tamron 28-75 f2.8 for a sb600 instead
 
HoppyUK said:
You need to increase the shutter speed.

If the baby's arms move say 2cm with a 1/60sec shutter speed, they will only move 1cm at 1/125sec, and so on. You will need to go quite high to get them sharp if that's what you want, but some motion blur is not only acceptable but sometimes desirable. Shows the lil' one's alive and kicking. You don't want blurred faces though.

You can raise the shutter speed by increasing ISO or lowering the f/number but you can only go so far with that and you're probably quite close to the limit already. The only way forward then is the raise the light level, either by moving close to a window or outside.

Or use flash. That will raise the light level and also since the flash duration is always very short (less than 1/1000sec, often less than 1/10000) you're unlikely to get any blur. You may not like the effect with flash and there are ways to change that, eg bouncing etc, but that's different question.
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thanks
that makes alot of sense
in bristol and it's a sunny day at the moment. in the front master bedroom by the window too (albeit curtains closed, but still very light)

will post some examples later tonight to show
 
p1tse said:
thanks
that makes alot of sense
in bristol and it's a sunny day at the moment. in the front master bedroom by the window too (albeit curtains closed, but still very light)

will post some examples later tonight to show
Click to expand...

Window light is often the best and if you can avoid direct sun and harsh shadows it looks great. Just get a big white reflector (pillowcase is fine) and hold it close on the shadow side to fill in the darker areas. Perfect! :)

A decent flash will really open things up for you. You will likely need a little help to get the most from it but nothing too tricky. Plenty of good advice here, maybe in the Lighting forum.
 
A good rule of thumb, not accounting for VR, your shutter speed needs to be faster than 1 / (focal length x crop factor) to account for camera shake on a stationary subject.

For example, if you use say 60mm and you're using a D90 (1.6x crop factor), then the shutter speed should be faster than 1/96s.

If you cannot achieve this then up the ISO or widen the aperture until you can (accounting for a good exposure). For something that's moving, needs to be much faster then this, depending on the speed of the subject.
 
I have next to no experience with portraits, but IMO this is somewhere that equipment makes a big difference.
After I got a flash with tilt & swivel head (for bouncing the light) and a 50mm f/1.8 lens my portraits improved incredibly.

Sorry for the subject but this is the only example I have at the moment :D. All I did here was aperture priority mode at f/2.8 and bounced the flash off the ceiling of a pretty dark room - simple!
4105107915_ede7e2f109_o.jpg
 
Get 50mm f/1.4 (85mm should also do) AND SB600/900. Primes really excel in indoor nat. light portraiture but having flash is always handy. You should be OK at around 1/250s shutter speed for moving kids. f/4 is for outdoors, sorry.
 
If anything is moving never use auto modes.... I don't even know half of them. use manaul and take readings.


Adjust as needed. you fast shutter and open your lens up . Up the ISO if need be.

When doing motor sport and footy for Nationals we all use manual, the only thing that was'nt was the autofocus. You have to many variables in any of the auto modes.
 
Daryl said:
If anything is moving never use auto modes.... I don't even know half of them. use manaul and take readings.
P is ok as it follows your iso settings??

Adjust as needed. you fast shutter and open your lens up . Up the ISO if need be.

When doing motor sport and footy for Nationals we all use manual, the only thing that was'nt was the autofocus. You have to many variables in any of the auto modes.
Click to expand...

speed priority is a possibility...
a strobe is best but its going to need lowish sync?

i think the arms and legs are a bit of the fun
 
will post some sample shots from this morning when i get a chance to show motion blur

only flash i have is inbuilt and not a fan of direct light on to the baby
 
I know someone who used a cut in half white ish 35mm film holder / case on a shoot over a built in flash on a DSLR. Worked quite well as a diffuser. Improvise I guess and see what happens :-) Main thing is av a go and work from there.
 
1. legs blur motion
PBDSC_0293.jpg


2. arms blur motion
PBDSC_0307.jpg
 
Looking at the exif for those two photo's both were taken at ISO 200, 1/50s &1/60s, F4. You've opened up the aperture to allow more light in but the shutter speed is too slow to freeze the action. Try pushing the ISO to 400 to double the speed. This would double the shutter speed and probably be sufficient to prevent the blurring. If not then push the ISO up further. Try and nail the exposure and noise will be minimised.

Oh, almost forget to say what a beautiful baby!
 
Agreed with the above you really just need to get the shutter speed up to stop the blur on the arms and legs, going to ISO 400 should solve it and if not ISO 800 will allow the shutter speed to go faster still.

Cute baby as well :)
 
be warned, if you spend lots of dosh to get a "faster" f2.8 lens you end up with a much narrower depth of field, especially close in to the subject, so then you'll need to start a thread "Blurry stationary baby arms and legs issues " ;)

I dont know exactly how your camera works with it's flash, but I suspect its not dissimilar to the TTL functionality on my canon 400D.
So put the camera in manual mode with TTL (or whatever its called) flash , you then have full control of aperture and shutter speed to suit your subject, so set shutter to freeze the limbs (say 1/125 or 1/150, dont exceed the cameras max flash sync speed although it probably wont let you) and use f8 or f11 to get decent depth of field as limbs tend to get waved towards you (shorter depth of field towards you). The flash will probably (if it works anything like mine) then get adjusted automatically to provide the light necessary to suit your camera settings

If you are worried about direct flash power on the baby try it on yourself first, with a helper, or in a mirror with camera on your shoulder

If you want to try diffusing the popup flash there are all sorts of methods: pieces of white paper or kitchen foil can both be used as reflectors to send the flash onto a convenient white ceiling, or plastic milkbottles cut up to fit as diffusers. You'll lose a lot of power with any flash modifiers so it'll be slow to recharge, and you may max out the flash power, if that happens increase the iso until you get to the point you need a seperate flashgun
Dont forget you can mix flash and daylight to improve lighting, a strategic window may not be enough on its own but combined with a popup flash may make it work.
 
thanks for the replies

will increase ISO and shutter speed next time

probably try on manual ISO 800 1/125 f8 and see how things go.

enjoying learning all about this and using the equipment i have.
but having had external flash on old camera, will look at sb600
 
Is see you are after a fast lens to help solve your shutter speed issue, the best investment by far that I have made is getting an external flash. Even with a fast lens you will often need additional light but with a flash I can make a very dark room look nice and bright. The Nikon flashes are so easy to use even my wife who has no idea about cameras can get good results whenever she takes it to a party or something I just set the camera to M and 1/200 f4 iso400 flash on TTL and those settings get it right 95% of the time. I highly recommend the sb600.

An example here no blurry hands



They are only babies once!
 
jpd300, what aperature setting do you use in M?

great pic, i like that alot

can't wait until the little guy can sit up
 
When I take photos I change it a lot, it can be anything from f2 to f5.6 but I would say F4 is my most used setting. Not sure what your 18-105 is but even if you are at F5.6 the sb600 should handle this no problem at iso200. If your ceilings are high (mine are) and the photos are slightly underexposed then just up the iso and as you have a good light source even iso800 on you d90 should be fairly clean they are on my d50. I also bounce of the walls fairly often this give a very nice effect (fake window light) just make sure you have a neutral colour wall not green of something!!.

I won’t be long before he is sitting up and moving around (busy times then) and you will need even more shutter speed!!

Julian
 
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