My katy Girl

[curtiswheat]

My little western girl got her first horse today. A little rain kept the camera inside....

[clockdoc]

Hi Curtis,
This is a pleasing shot of Katy. A little soft in the eyes, where one typically strives for crisp focus. Some of the unsharpness may be due to camera/subject movement. I see the exposure was only 1/4 second. Did you extract her from the background or was it washed out as shown here? I'll be happy to help where I can.

[curtiswheat]

Yes the shutter was a bit slow. I bought some new lights and was trying to get her to blend into a solit white background. Noticed a bunch of them were blured. What is an average shutter speed to try to stay close to in portraits? 1/60 or better?

[clockdoc]

Hi. There isn't a prescribed average shutter speed for portraits. An old rule of thumb says to use the reciprocal of the focal length of the lens. For example, you shot this at the 40mm focal length so the "rule" would suggest 1/40 second. However, most folks cannot hand-hold a camera at 1/40 and get a good sharp image (or keep an active kid still). The new Vibration Resistant lenses may help here but I would favor something over 1/100second or even higher. The shutter speed will also greatly affect your ability to control your aperture in a given light. So you really have to consider both aspects and what you are trying to get in your final image. You mentioned new lights, did you use flash on this one as I did not see flash in the EXIF data. Flash coupled with a slow shutter speed can make for some nice shots balanced with ambient light. But for such a slow shutter speed it is best to use a tripod. Don't hesitate to ask more questions if I have confused the issue here. 8-)