Niece's 1st Birthday

Sorry John, but these images are very blurry, due to the slow shutter speed.

Not a Canon shooter, so don't have knowledge of your camera, but you'd need to be raising iso to help improve shutter speeds. Other option is to use flash but that's a whole different discussion.
 
I agree with JP, once you sort out the shutter speed /ISO/aperture relationship things will get sharper.

With kids, it's often a good idea to wipe the snot off their nose before pointing a camera at them too.
 
johnnypanic said:
Sorry John, but these images are very blurry, due to the slow shutter speed.

Not a Canon shooter, so don't have knowledge of your camera, but you'd need to be raising iso to help improve shutter speeds. Other option is to use flash but that's a whole different discussion.
Click to expand...

Morbid said:
I agree with JP, once you sort out the shutter speed /ISO/aperture relationship things will get sharper.

With kids, it's often a good idea to wipe the snot off their nose before pointing a camera at them too.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the replies :), it is a shame that my shutter speed wasn't fast enough, I did attempt to use my speedlite in a couple of other shots, but they came out badly over exposed, so more practise is in order.
 
John, I don't think you really needed a Speedlite in this situation. Using 1/50 sec, as mentioned by JP, is the issue. You didn't need to shoot at 1/50 - you had a couple of options without using flash.

1. You could have opened the aperture from F2.8 to F1.8 to allow more light in (though you would have ended up with a very narrow depth of field) - this would have allowed you to increase the shutter speed, but F2.8 is probably about right for this type of shot;
2. You shot at ISO 200, I'm not sure how the 450D handles noise at higher ISO but you could have increased this to 400 or 800 without much of a problem (I used to have a 400D), and this would have allowed a shutter speed of 1/125 sec or faster (which would have eliminated any camera shake or motion blur). It may be a bit grainy, but it's better to have a bit of noise and a sharp image (and you can reduce noise in PP).

If you are not comfortable adjusting aperture/shutter speed/ISO, you could try one of the semi-auto modes with auto ISO and let the camera work out what settings need to be adjusted. Review the EXIF data/settings afterwards to get a feel for what settings are needed for different situations.

As for the flash, I don't mean to sound patronising, but I'd leave this for now until you have the basics worked out.

As an example of using higher ISO, this was shot on Saturday at ISO 500, F2.8 and 1/320 sec (which was probably quicker than I needed but although he looks like he's sat still I was actually following him around the room from low light at one end to near a large window - he's halfway in this shot).

IMG_5473v3 by Ian J Bradshaw, on Flickr

Keep practicing and posting up your shots, plenty of people to offer advice on here.
 
Morbid said:
John, I don't think you really needed a Speedlite in this situation. Using 1/50 sec, as mentioned by JP, is the issue. You didn't need to shoot at 1/50 - you had a couple of options without using flash.

1. You could have opened the aperture from F2.8 to F1.8 to allow more light in (though you would have ended up with a very narrow depth of field) - this would have allowed you to increase the shutter speed, but F2.8 is probably about right for this type of shot;
2. You shot at ISO 200, I'm not sure how the 450D handles noise at higher ISO but you could have increased this to 400 or 800 without much of a problem (I used to have a 400D), and this would have allowed a shutter speed of 1/125 sec or faster (which would have eliminated any camera shake or motion blur). It may be a bit grainy, but it's better to have a bit of noise and a sharp image (and you can reduce noise in PP).

If you are not comfortable adjusting aperture/shutter speed/ISO, you could try one of the semi-auto modes with auto ISO and let the camera work out what settings need to be adjusted. Review the EXIF data/settings afterwards to get a feel for what settings are needed for different situations.

As for the flash, I don't mean to sound patronising, but I'd leave this for now until you have the basics worked out.

As an example of using higher ISO, this was shot on Saturday at ISO 500, F2.8 and 1/320 sec (which was probably quicker than I needed but although he looks like he's sat still I was actually following him around the room from low light at one end to near a large window - he's halfway in this shot).

IMG_5473v3 by Ian J Bradshaw, on Flickr

Keep practicing and posting up your shots, plenty of people to offer advice on here.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for the informative reply and no you don't sound patronising at all, I have pretty much gotten to grips with shooting animals at zoos & getting used to wide angle shots, however I haven't had many opportunities to shoot people & toddlers are quite a difficult subject when they don't understand about sitting still, so the higher shutter speed would be essential now. At the party I was told by my Sister to just shoot as much as possible, so it was literally just picking up the camera whenever I had my niece in range and shot without checking settings :oops: :$

That is a lovely shot Ian and yes there are a lot of helpful people on here willing to give constructive criticism, whom have helped me greatly in the past with other things, which has also in turn helped my love for photography grow. I am due to be doing a model shoot in the coming weeks which is being organised by a professional & so he will be there to give me guidance and improve on my picture taking of people. :)

Thanks again for the really useful reply
 
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