Why are some of my shots not very sharp?

andy_fozzy

andy_fozzy

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Andy!
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Evenin' all.

It's not all of them, of course ;)
so it's not really a problem, but just wondered why some of my shots aren't very sharp?
What makes a shot not very sharp?
And what can I do to make them better (without PP).

The below shot is a great example.
Details:

Nikon D200 & Nikon 50mm F1.8 D
1/60
F1.8
ISO 100

200209_3.jpg


I'm not blaming the body or lens, I know it's me going wrong somewhere.
Shutter speed to low perhaps :shrug:

Appreciate any advice on this......
 
Presumably, the focus is on the eyes? The pic is a little too small for me to make out clearly, but it looks fairly sharp as it is. Maybe you could crop to head & shoulders, but keep the image the same size?
 
f/1.8 is pushing the lens to the limit - very shallow depth of field. Try stopping it down to f3.2 and increasing the shutter speed to 1/80 at least.
Also there are few photos that are out of camera sharp, and most require sharpening to some extent.
 
Thanks guys.
Actually, I done a few at F2.8, and this seemed to improve somewhat.....

Just doing a crop of Ruby now.........
 
1/60 is a bit slow- but you did use flash. The main culprit I'd say in this case is shooting wide open at f1.8. Lenses will always seem 'softer' wide open because only a narrow plane of the picture will be in focus. Also most lenses don't perform that well optically when wide open. Stop down to f5.6 or f8 and things should look sharper- especially with kit lenses.
 
Cheers.
I was using the Speedlight SB-25 flash, and on A mode I can either use 1/30 or 1/60.

I guess M mode would be better then where I can go up to 1/200?
 
It looks like the camera has focused on the wooden toy on the left, but its hard to work out where that is in relation to the girl. Clearly it is not of a simular enough distance for them both to be in focus with such a shallow DOF.
 
GeForce Junky said:
It looks like the camera has focused on the wooden toy on the left, but its hard to work out where that is in relation to the girl. Clearly it is not of a simular enough distance for them both to be in focus with such a shallow DOF.
Click to expand...

The toy does appear to be more in focus than she is!!!!!!

:eek:

I was def focussed on her. Maybe not on her eyes though......

The toy was sat just a wee bit in front of her.
 
at f1.8 once you have focus you only have to rock a bit and you can get soft shots, the second though just looks like a mistake as its way oof, try it on a tripod @ f1.8 and it would probably be fine as long as the nipper doesn't move LOL
 
cannockwolf said:
at f1.8 once you have focus you only have to rock a bit and you can get soft shots, the second though just looks like a mistake as its way oof, try it on a tripod @ f1.8 and it would probably be fine as long as the nipper doesn't move LOL
Click to expand...

Cheers Dave.
She's a little cow. She won't sit still for longer than a few seconds, at best :lol:
 
andy_fozzy said:
Cheers.
I was using the Speedlight SB-25 flash, and on A mode I can either use 1/30 or 1/60.

I guess M mode would be better then where I can go up to 1/200?
Click to expand...

If you go up to 1/200 then you'll find the background will be almost (if not totally) black.

The trick is to remember that the aperture controls how the flash-lit portion of the photo looks, whereas the shutter speed is responsible for the appearance of the ambient (unlit) portion of the exposure.
 
andy_fozzy said:
Cheers Dave.
She's a little cow. She won't sit still for longer than a few seconds, at best :lol:
Click to expand...
LOL i know your pain

i took this (see below) by using high speed continuos and continuos tracking AF ran off about 3-4 shots to get the one i wanted, no flash used maybe worth a try

I have made it a link so as not to hijack clicky link
 
Andy, I dunno how many times I've said this mate, but if you reduce an image in size for web viewing it loses sharpness, and must be re-sharpened at the new size, so these images are no judge of the sharpness of your lens. ;)
 
Jayst84 said:
What do you mean by this? Flash sync speed is the same, regardless of what mode you're shooting in..
Click to expand...

In the camera menu I have flash sync speed = 1/200
and flash shutter speed 1/60

:shrug:

In A mode the shutter speed never goes above 1/60.......
 
cannockwolf said:
LOL i know your pain

i took this (see below) by using high speed continuos and continuos tracking AF ran off about 3-4 shots to get the one i wanted, no flash used maybe worth a try

I have made it a link so as not to hijack clicky link
Click to expand...

Thanks mate, I'll give that a try later.
Lovely shot......
 
CT said:
Andy, I dunno how many times I've said this mate, but if you reduce an image in size for web viewing it loses sharpness, and must be re-sharpened at the new size, so these images are no judge of the sharpness of your lens. ;)
Click to expand...

Point taken. I know I've struggled to grasp this in the past, but when I'm viewing the first image posted in this thread on my screen, it's very clear to see that it's as soft as hell.

Granted though, just had a quick play with the smart sharpen in CS2 on the cropped image and it did make a bit of difference :)
 
andy_fozzy said:
Point taken. I know I've struggled to grasp this in the past, but when I'm viewing the first image posted in this thread on my screen, it's very clear to see that it's as soft as hell.

Granted though, just had a quick play with the smart sharpen in CS2 on the cropped image and it did make a bit of difference :)
Click to expand...

Well I wouldn't mess about with smart sharpen or any 'one click do it all' filters. Sharpening is something you need to take control of and exercise your own good judgement as to when it's sharp. Try applying USM in small increments till you judge it to be sharp.
 
I'm certain small children vibrate, I find that I need at least 1/100 & f4 to stop the little beggars moving.

That's why the wooden toy is sharp & the girl is blurry :D
 
Maybe I'm not qualified enough to offer "expert" advice as I only class myself as a "casual" photographer but - as CT had already pointed out - it's rare for an image to stay sharp once it's been reduced in size for showing on the internet. My own theory is that when an image is sized down heavily, that causes pixels to be dropped out so the end result is a slight blur effect.
To address that problem, I always give my reduced images a quick and sligh sharpen before saving (sharpen too heavily and you get this jagged effect on any straight lines on the photo). Plus it has to be saved as a JPEG and placed in a photo hosting website such as photobucket (other photo hosting web sites are available!) which can't have helped to preserve the quality of the overall image.
The effect is even worse when an image is cropped.
All that are really my take on things and is the ramblings of a novice but that's what I think anyway.
 
Sharpen the naffer!!! :bang:

3308176791_a3b32a4e33_o.jpg


;)
 
andy_fozzy said:
Nice.....

Is that using USM?
Click to expand...

Yes. Just keep applying USM. It doesn't matter how many times you do it. If you see halos starting to appear or unnatural looking highlights, then just go up to 'Edit' and undo the last USM step or two. :thumbs:
 
CT said:
Yes. Just keep applying USM. It doesn't matter how many times you do it. If you see halos starting to appear or unnatural looking highlights, then just go up to 'Edit' and undo the last USM step or two. :thumbs:
Click to expand...

Cheers mate :thumbs:
 
A tip I was give to sharpen for the web

View pic at 100%

use USM - set amount 120, radius 0.2 APPLY AS MANY TIMES as you need to get required effect, by using Ctrl+F, if too much is applied use the history pallet to go back (and forward) until you get what you want.

As CT says look for halos etc.

HTH
 
NIQKIENOO said:
A tip I was give to sharpen for the web

View pic at 100%

use USM - set amount 120, radius 0.2 APPLY AS MANY TIMES as you need to get required effect, by using Ctrl+F, if too much is applied use the history pallet to go back (and forward) until you get what you want.

As CT says look for halos etc.

HTH
Click to expand...

Nice one, will try this later. Many thanks :thumbs:
 
NIQKIENOO said:
A tip I was give to sharpen for the web

View pic at 100%

use USM - set amount 120, radius 0.2 APPLY AS MANY TIMES as you need to get required effect, by using Ctrl+F, if too much is applied use the history pallet to go back (and forward) until you get what you want.

As CT says look for halos etc.

HTH
Click to expand...
What's USM?
 
UnSharp Mask, under sharpen in the filters menu
 
It's just out of focus. As has been said, depth of field is tiny at f/1.8 (why are you using f/1.8?) and any slight movement by the subject, or you with the camera, even by an inch or so, will take the edge off sharpness. There's nothing wrong with your lens; it should be plenty sharp even at f/1.8 in the centre of the frame.

It's not camera shake or shutter speed related either as you've used flash. The flash duration is your effective shutter speed here, and that will likely be 1/5000sec or possibly even shorter!
 
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