What am I doing wrong?

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gmacro

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Ok so please dont be mean to me as I am new to all of this but I need help! I have taken some portraits of my family and although I love the poses, I dont understand why the images are not sharp and are blurred.

I am going to be completely honest and say that the camera was set on Auto and I only used natural lighting (which prob didnt help me either) but Im really disappointed in them! Any advice on how to get them looking crisp would be must appreciated!

heres a link to a few of them...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/66484195@N02/
 
Oh and forgot to say I was using the 50mm portrait lens!!!!
 
Try putting the camera in Av mode and selecting single point focus (aim this at your subject), it may be that the autofocus was selecting the wrong focus point.

Looking at the file exif info, you were shooting at 1/50 of a second, aim for at least 1/125 to avoid camera shake (blurring) and select an aperture of at least F8 to get good front to back focus as at f2.0 on the group shot will only have the person at the front in full focus.

Otherwise there are some really nice shots there.
 
whoops!! :bang:
 
+1 for picking your own focus point. You can clearly see on the first picture, that the area of focus is on the guys hand.
 
Depth of Field ! simple as that. The exif shows all your shots are between f1.8 and f2.8 which would be fine if you were shooting one person and focusing on the eyes but with a group who are posed off the plane (ie one behind the other or slightly staggered front to back) you will need to increase your DoF by closing down your lens aperture (try f5.6) and keep an eye on your focus point as said above. If this is confusing you then have a look here

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/

Some really nice tutorials there, Depth of Field is the one that most togs find hard to get there head round at the start because so many factors affect it, Aperture, focal length, distance to subject etc. Johnsy also made a point about your shutter speed being a little slow at 1/50th (were you tripod mounted ?) You were obviously using flash so 1/50 is okay but ideally 1/125 minimum especially if hand holding.

Apart from that your shots are nice.
 
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the first one of the set was shot at f1.8. thats waaaaay too thin, notice the guy is in focus but the lady not?

increase the aperture and get the ISO up, thatll increase the shutter speed.
 
neil_g said:
the first one of the set was shot at f1.8. thats waaaaay too thin, notice the guy is in focus but the lady not?

increase the aperture and get the ISO up, thatll increase the shutter speed.
Click to expand...

Actually he's not its his hand that's in focus check out his eyes they are definitely OOF.
 
These are really not particularly bad photos, there are some minor mistakes but nothing to beat yourself up about. I know I made a few of the same mistakes when I first got my nifty fifty to shoot portraits, but you'll quickly learn how to get them sharper - especially with a bit of friendly advice from the folk in this forum. I've already learned tons in my few weeks here - it's a great place! :)
 
It's both a focus and depth of field issue.

If you let the camera choose the focus point, it will almost always go for the nearest part - it knows no better, and that will usually be better than the furthest part. You need to tell it where to focus, ie on the eyes, so use single point AF, but be aware that shallow DoF portraits like at f/1.8 are difficult to nail at the best of times - tricky technqiue, though the results is usually really nice.

So the easiest option is to use a higher f/number, for deeper depth of field that will cover slight errors. You must also use a higher f/number for groups, because it's very difficult to get everyone at exactly the same distance from the camera and in a narrow zone of sharpness.
 
I'd agree with whats been said here already, photos 3 & 4 seem to be very much that you're using too wide an aperture (too small an f number) and the depth of field is too narrow to get everything in sharp focus. Lots of useful info and tools to work this kind of isue out can be found here http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

Also when you're shooting against a plain background like that then a really wide aperture isn't overly necessary, in terms of blurring out the background.

And also as suggested take control of the focus yourself and select one AF point (central is usually most accurate) and focus on the eyes, then if necessary keep the shutter button pressed half down and recompose the shot and shoot.
 
Thank you for all your help and advice!

I will do what was said and see how I get on!!!:)
 
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