Product shot - Shot at f9 50mm - Still not sharp in background

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mrk123

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kane
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Hi, any ideas on this? I shot at f9, on a 50mm possibly about 100th and with bounce flash. I need the background sharp, I would have thought at f9 it would be in focus?
I'd hope I'd not have to focus stack, seems long winded.
Image is a low res web ready image.
collar.jpg
 
I'm not going to guess what camera you took that with, how big that item is or what the camera to subject distance is but I think it's safe to assume that your DoF is thin at f9.

Googling your way to a DoF table might be an idea.
 
The shutter speed has no relevance, nor does the focal length of the lens, it's all about the magnification, the different distances between the front and the rear of the subject and the camera height, and we don't know what your shooting distance was, nor do we know how much distance there was between the front and the rear of the subject - but you do:)

Put that data into any online dof calculator and it wil lell you what to expect in terms of dof, but bear in mind that what is "acceptable" to one person may not be acceptable to others, so it's just a guide - the reality is that dof is really just an illusion, only one plane of absolutely sharp focus can exist, the apparent dof is subjective.

How to avoid this problem?

My guess is that you used autofocus, which is nearly always the wrong choice for this type of subject, and that the autofocus was on the flag stitch, right at the front, next to the left hand D ring, if you focus manually and focus on a point about 1/3rd into the subject then that in itself may completely cure the problem

I like to photograph most products from a low camera position, it makes them look heroic, more important, but if you raise the camera a bit then it will be a big help with dof.

And, of course, a smaller aperture will help too, and I can't see why you cant use a smaller one. Hope this helps
 
That appears to be a very small item.

Depth of field decreases as the distance from the object decreases. You'll have to close down to f16 or F22 (if the lens permits that) to get the whole object in focus.
 
If you've got a longer lens, try shooting from further away: as others have said, DoF decreases with the distance from the lens.
 
skullfunkerry said:
If you've got a longer lens, try shooting from further away: as others have said, DoF decreases with the distance from the lens.
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Hi..
I have a 70-200 2.8 Canon but thought a longer lens would make the DoF shallower?
 
woof woof said:
I'm not going to guess what camera you took that with, how big that item is or what the camera to subject distance is but I think it's safe to assume that your DoF is thin at f9.

Googling your way to a DoF table might be an idea.
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Hi, Canon 5dmk3, With the 50mm... I thought going smaller at f16 would have the reverse effect.. I was probaby about 2ft from the item, which as you can see is a dog collar.
 
I was looking at a competitor image, and it's focussed from front to back...? bully.jpg
 
mrk123 said:
Hi, Canon 5dmk3, With the 50mm... I thought going smaller at f16 would have the reverse effect.. I was probaby about 2ft from the item, which as you can see is a dog collar.
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The bigger the f number the smaller the physical aperture and the deeper the depth of field. ie. f16 gives you a deeper depth of field than f9.
 
woof woof said:
The bigger the f number the smaller the physical aperture and the deeper the depth of field. ie. f16 gives you a deeper depth of field than f9.
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I know this.. But from f9 to f22 would not mean suddenly everything in focus - I am lef to believe at a certain point going even higher would have more destructive effects on the image
 
mrk123 said:
I know this.. But from f9 to f22 would not mean suddenly everything in focus - I am lef to believe at a certain point going even higher would have more destructive effects on the image
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We have to remember that we're not getting everything in focus we're trying to get everything within certain limits acceptably sharp.

At smaller apertures you may run into diffraction which may give you less resolution and contrast but these things are a balance. The best thing may be to try different apertures with the same set up and camera to subject distance and see which results suit you best.
 
RyanB said:
Shouldn't really be posting someone else's image but to my eye that looks focus stacked.
Not difficult using something like Affinity (free).
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Hi. I blanked their logo plus this is a stock product that many brands use, they just added their logo (which is blocked out).
So taking 2 or 3 images and just adjusting the focus (front, middle, back) and then blending in affinity (or Photoshop)?
 
mrk123 said:
Hi. I blanked their logo plus this is a stock product that many brands use, they just added their logo (which is blocked out).
So taking 2 or 3 images and just adjusting the focus (front, middle, back) and then blending in affinity (or Photoshop)?
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Yes, I aim for a 20%ish overlap between shots normally and use a tripod to avoid changing perspective.
 
Yup, although possibly more than 3 or 4 images, then blend for front to back sharpness.
 
RyanB said:
Yes, I aim for a 20%ish overlap between shots normally and use a tripod to avoid changing perspective.
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damn - long winded but guess there's no other way!
I have not used affinity beofre, easy in photoshop?? Just using masks?
 
mrk123 said:
damn - long winded but guess there's no other way!
I have not used affinity beofre, easy in photoshop?? Just using masks?
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Ha, long winded is when you bracket for extreme macro and shoot hundreds of frames to cover a couple mm. :)
After the setup for the shot with a bit of practice something the size of a dog collar can be done in 5-10 min shooting with another few to stack it in Affinity.

It can be done in PS or Affinity, both are fairly straight forward. I found last time I tried it I got better results from Affinity than from PS.
Less clean up from stacking artifacts/ missed bits. That was several versions of PS ago though so it may have improved. I usually stack in Affinity and switch over to PS for post processing and any touch ups.
 
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Another solution, not mentioned previously, is to use a tilt-shift lens. That can allow the focus plane to be at an angle to the sensor plane.

That could be how your competitor achieved their result in a single frame (and I too agree you shouldn't post someone else's shot).

Of course, you would need to buy the tilt-shift lens, at which point the "long winded" focus stack may become an attractive solution.
 
mrk123 said:
I was looking at a competitor image, and it's focussed from front to back...? View attachment 476299
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That may or may not be focus-stacked, it's always an option but pretty time-consuming.

But can't you see that the competitor's shot was taken with the camera much higher, which dramatically reduced the effective depth of the subject?
 
Garry Edwards said:
That may or may not be focus-stacked, it's always an option but pretty time-consuming.

But can't you see that the competitor's shot was taken with the camera much higher, which dramatically reduced the effective depth of the subject?
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Yes as it's a lead, mine is a collar and needs shooting from the angle I have, their collars are the same angle as mine and focussed front to back
 
sk66 said:
What is the purpose of the image? If it is just white BG web sales then just stand much farther away and crop in post. Or, I often use small sensor cameras instead (Nikon 1, Fuji X20).
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yes for web sales.. hmm... moving back is an option yes.
 
What I will do is one of these or all...

Strand further back and crop in
Use a tripod and try focus bracketing / blending
Use manual focus
Try higher fNumber at maybe 11 or 16
 
f/16 will be fine with a full-frame camera, f/11 will be fine with a crop-frame camera, each step down results in the need for a larger aperture (smaller f/No) because the smaller the f/No relative to the sensor size will increase the effect of diffraction limitation, which is a general loss of sharpness.

But, it's usually more or less OK to go at least 1 stop smaller than the ideal, because the loss of overall sharpness is gradual - not a cliff edge - and the result is usually much better than the alternative:)
 
Garry Edwards said:
f/16 will be fine with a full-frame camera, f/11 will be fine with a crop-frame camera, each step down results in the need for a larger aperture (smaller f/No) because the smaller the f/No relative to the sensor size will increase the effect of diffraction limitation, which is a general loss of sharpness.

But, it's usually more or less OK to go at least 1 stop smaller than the ideal, because the loss of overall sharpness is gradual - not a cliff edge - and the result is usually much better than the alternative:)
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I will try f16 first as it would be the least amount of work... Manual focus too?
 
Yes, definitely manual focus, your focus point needs to be about 1/3rd in, as I said before.

And when you've sorted this issue out you need to improve the lighting, which doesn't flatter your product
 
Garry Edwards said:
Yes, definitely manual focus, your focus point needs to be about 1/3rd in, as I said before.

And when you've sorted this issue out you need to improve the lighting, which doesn't flatter your product
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Unfortunately I am limited to one flash, so I have been bouncing it off of a white wall to try spread the light as evenly as possible. What would you suggest?
 
You only need one light, but it needs to be positioned so that it doesn't amplify that horrible overlit white label, which is distracting to say the least. Your light is coming from the left, it should be much better from the right. If push comes to shove you can create an extra light simply by putting a piece of folded white paper on the other side, to reflect spare light at the angle that's needed.

If you look in the "Resources" tab you'll find lots of tutorials on lighting, and then there are the various lighting challenges, some of which will be more useful to you in this context than others, but you can learn from all of them.

The simple fact of the matter is that when we sell generic products on-line, the same as those sold by our competitors, our photos need to be better than theirs:)
 
Garry Edwards said:
You only need one light, but it needs to be positioned so that it doesn't amplify that horrible overlit white label, which is distracting to say the least. Your light is coming from the left, it should be much better from the right. If push comes to shove you can create an extra light simply by putting a piece of folded white paper on the other side, to reflect spare light at the angle that's needed.

If you look in the "Resources" tab you'll find lots of tutorials on lighting, and then there are the various lighting challenges, some of which will be more useful to you in this context than others, but you can learn from all of them.

The simple fact of the matter is that when we sell generic products on-line, the same as those sold by our competitors, our photos need to be better than theirs:)
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That 'white label' is white brush in photoshop! To mask the brand out. also it is the RAW image, nothing in C1 or PS yet.
 
Garry Edwards said:
You only need one light, but it needs to be positioned so that it doesn't amplify that horrible overlit white label, which is distracting to say the least.
Click to expand...
To be fair, that's a poorly edited out label...

mrk123 said:
Unfortunately I am limited to one flash, so I have been bouncing it off of a white wall to try spread the light as evenly as possible. What would you suggest?
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I would make sure the flash is zoomed out and bounce it off the ceiling/wall corner over your right shoulder (assuming it's not too far away).
 
mrk123 said:
That 'white label' is white brush in photoshop! To mask the brand out. also it is the RAW image, nothing in C1 or PS yet.
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:D
 
sk66 said:
To be fair, that's a poorly edited out label...


I would make sure the flash is zoomed out and bounce it off the ceiling/wall corner over your right shoulder (assuming it's not too far away).
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yes the label is badly edited out, it was never meant to be nice.. It took me 2 seconds... was just to upload it here.
 
Boots said:
Another solution, not mentioned previously, is to use a tilt-shift lens. That can allow the focus plane to be at an angle to the sensor plane.

That could be how your competitor achieved their result in a single frame (and I too agree you shouldn't post someone else's shot).

Of course, you would need to buy the tilt-shift lens, at which point the "long winded" focus stack may become an attractive solution.
Click to expand...

This was my first thought, especially if you have a lot of these to do and don’t want to be bothered stacking in pp.

‘Tilt’ is the critical part of the name for this application; the ‘shift’ part is more for perspective correction, such as for architectural photography. Some Chinese lens makers are doing tilt-only lenses that could be a bit cheaper
.
 
Musicman said:
This was my first thought, especially if you have a lot of these to do and don’t want to be bothered stacking in pp.

‘Tilt’ is the critical part of the name for this application; the ‘shift’ part is more for perspective correction, such as for architectural photography. Some Chinese lens makers are doing tilt-only lenses that could be a bit cheaper
.
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Not got £3000 spare :)
 
The magic bullet here is just a very basic understanding of how to use a camera at close distances, which you now have.
You don't need a tilt lens or focus stacking, both of which would slow down your production rate significantly - knowledge always trumps gear:)
 
skullfunkerry said:
If you've got a longer lens, try shooting from further away: as others have said, DoF decreases with the distance from the lens.
Click to expand...
Yeah but for the same framing and aperture, DOF at the subject is pretty much the same no matter what focal length you use (>35mm, this doesn't work on wide angles). The reduction in DOF from a longer focal length gets cancelled out by the increase in DOF as you move away to make the same picture. DOF at the background does change, with the background getting blurrier with longer focal lengths.

Got to make the aperture smaller to increase the DOF.
 
Erty said:
Yeah but for the same framing and aperture, DOF at the subject is pretty much the same no matter what focal length you use (>35mm, this doesn't work on wide angles). The reduction in DOF from a longer focal length gets cancelled out by the increase in DOF as you move away to make the same picture. DOF at the background does change, with the background getting blurrier with longer focal lengths.

Got to make the aperture smaller to increase the DOF.
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The difference it makes is very small, but when you are starting with very little it can be notable.

That's why my preference is to use a smaller sensor; even though I do have a tilt-shift lens.
 
Can’t this easily be solved using focus stacking?
 
sk66 said:
The difference it makes is very small, but when you are starting with very little it can be notable.

That's why my preference is to use a smaller sensor; even though I do have a tilt-shift lens.
Click to expand...
As soon as you use a shorter focal length and crop in, the DOF changes.
 
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