Really dissapointed with results, help?

J

jdc_photo

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Name
Jayne
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi everyone,

Brand new to the forum so hello :)
I was photographing at the weekend with my two shoot through umbrella lights and muslin backdrop, photographing some kids at a local craft fair. I am just looking through and editing them and I am really disappointed with the quality.

At first glance they are ok, but blown up to any degree they are terrible! I'm not convinced that it is just motion blur (although some clearly are). I am using a Nikon D3200 that I recently bought, so I don't think it helps that I'm not brilliantly familiar with it just yet!

Any suggestions?

Thanks!
 
Could you post an example with the exif data? That gives us something to look at and try to help figure out what went wrong.

First thing that springs to mind, are you shooting in jpeg format and allowing the camera to resize the photo before its saved to the card?
 
5


Here is the image.
Yes I am shooting in JPEG, to be totally honest I don't really understand shooting in RAW! My last cannon didn't have the capability to so I just gave upon the idea!

exif data:

Make: NIKON CORPORATION

Model: NIKON D3200

Aperture: 5.6

Exposure Time: 1/80 (0.0125 sec)

Focal Length: 55.0 mm

Flash: Off, Did not fire

File Size: 4.7 MB

File Type: JPEG

MIME Type: image/jpeg

Image Width: 4000

Image Height: 5600

Encoding Process: Progressive DCT, Huffman coding

Bits Per Sample: 8

Color Components: 3

X Resolution: 300

Y Resolution: 300

Software: Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)

YCbCr Sub Sampling: YCbCr4:4:4 (1 1)

YCbCr Positioning: Co-sited

Exposure Program: Not Defined

Date and Time (Original): 2013:07:20 11:40:58

Max Aperture Value: 5.7

Metering Mode: Multi-segment

Light Source: Unknown

Color Space: sRGB

Sensing Method: One-chip color area

Custom Rendered: Normal

Exposure Mode: Auto

White Balance: Auto

Digital Zoom Ratio: 1

Focal Length In 35 mm Format: 82 mm

Scene Capture Type: Standard

Gain Control:High gain up

Contrast:Normal

Saturation: Normal

Sharpness: Normal

Subject Distance Range: Unknown

Time Created: 11:40:58+00:00

F Number: 5.6

Exposure Compensation: N/A

ISO: 3200

Color Mode: 3

Compression: JPEG (old-style)

Orientation: Horizontal (normal)

XMP Toolkit: Adobe XMP Core 5.3-c011 66.145661, 2012/02/06-14:56:27

Creator Tool: Ver.1.00
 
they were continuous lights. It was a canon 1000D, I had a friend with the 500D who could shoot in RAW but for some reason the 1000D could not.
 
The lights were not powerful enough for the situation.

If you needed ISO 3200 to get a correct exposure at 1/80 shutter speed and f/5.6 aperture, then you either need to control the light better, or to add more light.

(EOS1000D should be RAW enabled in P, M, TV and AV modes, but not in green box or 'creative-auto' modes)
 
I had similar problems when I tried portrait photography with continuous lighting.

I had "softness issues" and spent time banging my head against the wall trying to figure out just where I was going wrong. I eventually reached the following conclusions:-

1) The lighting I was using was terrible : simply not bright enough.

2) I am rather "shakier" than I thought.

3) A kit lens is O.K. but will never produce the same quality of images as one that costs hundreds & hundreds and my expectations were way too high.

4) It seems most people sharpen their images in some kind of software.

Perhaps not all of these will apply in your case but, believe me, you are not alone!

I switched to off camera flash and there was an immediate and large improvement in the quality of my images.
 
I would agree with everyone else, poor light has let you down here... (Those little screens on the camera can be very deceiving...you need to double check the 1st few by zooming on the screen to make sure it looks sound). or I now get in a habit of tethering the shot straight into lightroom if possible.
 
The lighting is at the heart of your problems. Few continuous lighting systems are bright enough, and most are hopeless. You also have yellow room lighting in there too.

That's forced the ISO too high, and I think you've also cropped that shot out of a horizontal frame, throwing away what little quality was to be had.

Use flash, and fill the frame. High ISO and heavy cropping is death to all aspects of image quality.

Not the best way to start on TP, but welcome anyway! Ask away - lots of help available here :)
 
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Continuous lights,bar the more high end, very powerful ones, are only really useful for still subjects. Where you can get away with longer shutter speeds to allow more light in. Having to pump up the ISO, as mentioned, is a no-no really for this type of shoot. You really want to keep it right down, and to do this you need off cam flash instead of constant lighting.
 
This is easy, like the other have said. 3200 iso on a crop sensor is something to stay away from. F5.6? Perhaps stopping down (a lot) if possible would help lower the iso and isolate the subject. Did you say you had lighting here?
 
Shayne, stopping down reduces the light getting through and increases the depth of field... The OP was probably shooting with as large an aperture as possible (checked the ISO and she was shooting at f/5.6 and probably a kit lens) so couldn't open up any more.

As has been said above, the high ISO has done the image no favours and at a guess, High ISO Noise Reduction has also been applied and has probably sucked even more sharpness out of the shot.

My suggestion would be a faster lens, probably a 50mm prime but she'll need an AF-S one to AF with her body so not as cheap an option as it could be, although if she can manually focus, she could use a cheaper screw driven lens. Even an f/1.8 would gain her 2 stops, allowing an ISO of 800 using her current lighting set up (which isn't ideal but is what she has).
 
As everyone else has said the iso seems to be the problem here.
 
Looks a little out of focus to me! Could just be my eyes ;)
 
Sorry Jayne you've made the classic mistake of buying first and asking questions later.

If you'd asked for advice before buying the lights, you'd still be saving up for a decent set, you wouldn't have the pictures or learned the hard way.

The lighting section is full of threads telling people these type of lights are unsuitable, is it too late to get your money back? Have they really promised what they can't deliver quality wise?
 
I bought lights for portraiture that turned out to be awful : fortunately, I do a bit of still life photography and they seem O.K. for that.

Not the best way to start on TP
Click to expand...

To be honest, I tend to disagree. Jayne has started on here with a problem that was baffling her and several people have come forward and given good advice. Also she's had what it takes to post a disappointing photo. If I were Jayne, I'd be encouraged by the fact that pro photographers have taken the trouble to help her out.

I know I'm grateful for the advice I've received.
 
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Hiya Jayne, lots of good advise here, my twopeneth is - pull you subject further from the background, if there's any wrinkles in the background (looks like you used a sheet) and the lens is open wide enough it'll render them out of focus.
 
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