best aperature setting

[Bentwing]

I really like this picture for personnel reasons (it sets a mood for me) and I think that might be tainting how I am looking at it. I think I should have raised the aperture to the next higher setting to get a little deeper focus. What do think. Any other pointers would also be welcome.

[Bentwing]

sorry about the large size I forgot to take it done to medium size bwefore I posted it. It sucks being a newby

[inkista]

Actually, you've got another problem going on--the slight bit of blurriness looks like camera shake to me. Looking at the exif, you were shooting iso 200, 1/60s, f/5, @130mm. You need a faster shutter speed (the rule of thumb to eliminate camera shake is to shoot with a shutter speed of at least 1/focal_length). I actually would have suggested cranking up the iso to 400, opening up to f/4, and trying to squeeze your shutter speed up to 1/150s or 1/200s.

[wulf]

Fortunately your Flickr settings made it fairly easy for me to slot a medium sized image in

I think Inkista is right - there is a touch of camera shake there. 1/60s is a bit slot when shooting at 130mm (details read off EXIF data on Flickr).

You may be able to recover it though - people sometimes deliberately shoot portraits with a diffuser and you may be able to make it look like you meant it . What photo editing software do you have? Someone may be able to suggest a suitable "recipe".

Wulf

[pcarfan]

My work computer is miserable to evaluate pictures, and I have to wait till I go home to be definitive, and things may change. But, I absolutely love the DOF in this picture. The ONLY problem may be the front tip of the hat (P.S: No, you know what, I actually even like that blurriness). The face and most of the hat is in focus and the shoulders and the hair out of focus and the bg completely out of focus. Brilliant!

P.S:
Hmmm!, two posts that has noticed a camera shake???? I don't see any camera shake.....In this computer I did not even see the wrinkled suit from a different post that was PP'd to remove the wrinkle. I am really interested in what others think. I definitely have to go home and see it again.

[Bentwing]

Thanks Wulf. It was deliberate, honestly. lol. I use photoshop 5 elements.

[wulf]

Any Elements users able to step up to the plate here?

Wulf

[inkista]

Hey, if Annie Leibovitz can put photos in galleries that have motion blur, then why not you? [grin] Technical perfection is just the craft of photography; it ain't the art. Just think of that hilarious "delete me" joke when someone posted a Cartier-Bresson masterpiece to the Flickr pool. And it got deleted for being fuzzy.

The fact that it works for you personally to set a mood is far more important than a little fuzziness.

[Arvid]

This is an OT question for inkista.
What program do you use to view EXIF?
I use Opanda and went to his full size photo on Flickr and still couldn't read the EXIF data.
Thank you
Arvid

[odark30]

In Elements: Filter>sharpen>unsharp mask. around 50-75% 2-3 pixels threshold 0. Be sure to duplicate the layer first so you can change your mind. You can also set your blend mode to screen and lower the opacitiy (of that) to around 15-20% ONLY if you want to brighten her face a bit. I think you'll find that the tiny amount of blur, you have in the photo, is actually what draws you into it...JMHO