Can't get pictures of my kid to be in focus??

[sbchic1999]

I am new to photography and am struggling a bit on this. I wanted to take a picture of my 4 yr old in Shutter Priority mode but the Fstop number kept flashing the higher I went. I had to use a slow shutter speed which of course blurs him because he is ALWAYS. Is this a limitation with my lense? I am just using the basic 35-55 mm that came with my Canon Rebel. My goal is to get a close up shot (blurry background) and use a fast enough shutter speed to make him STILL!! Can anyone help?? I am trying not to get stuck in Auto mode...

Thanks,

Stephanie

[Tito87]

Welcome to DPS. It would help a lot if you posted a picture, in order to see what's happening. In addition to that, read the forum rules and follow them. You'll get a lot more help if you do so.http://digital-photography-school.co...s#faq_critique

[Doug Sundseth]

To get a properly exposed photo, you have to have enough light hitting the sensor. Longer exposures and wider apertures increase the light hitting the sensor and raising the ISO reduces "enough". When there isn't much light, you cannot raise the shutter speed regardless of how wide open your aperture is (for a given ISO). It sounds like that's what's happening to you.

You can try raising the ISO value to get faster shutter speeds in dim light. As the ISO rises, you'll get more digital noise. To some extent this can be fixed in post, and it's often better to accept a noisy photo rather than a blurry photo.

The Canon 18-55 kit lens is a variable aperture f/3.5 - f/5.6 lens. A cheap alternative would be to pick up the Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens, which is about 8 times as fast as the kit lens set to 50mm. The lens is very sharp and highly recommended by nearly everyone who has used it.

A third option is to use flash to add light and freeze motion. I'd strongly recommend that you not use the pop-up flash for anything other than a fill light when shooting into the sun. Instead use off-camera flash, which will give you much more flattering light. A decent off-brand flash and a couple of radio transceivers will run you somewhere in the 200-250 USD range.

Finally, you can just shoot in brighter places. The kit lens will freeze action just fine on a playground or in the back yard. Even opening the curtains and turning on all the lights will help get you enough light to freeze action acceptably.

[Hill Country Hack]

I agree with tito. We can't comment without something to look at and know what your camera did. There are good tutorials on this site. Give them a read and it may answer your current questions, but may bring up many more than the tutorials answer

Photographing People

[mrteacherdude]

I'm going to echo what others have posted here already; it helps a lot if we have a photo to look at, and the settings that were used to get the image along with the lighting conditions you were shooting.

However, it does sound like you were trying to get photos indoors, likely in less than favorable lighting; been there done that. My immediate solution was to do as Doug suggested in his post, and that was to get the 50mm f1.8 lens; great lens for the price and I'm very happy I purchased it. It makes it much easier to get decent to good pictures in lower lighting conditions, and optically it is quite good. It spends a lot of time on my camera. But be aware that it does have limitations in that it is slow to autofocus and has a strong tendency to hunt when in really low light or low contrast situations. Once you get used to that, it's not that hard to compensate.

Doug also suggested stepping up your ISO. My Rebel is one of the older ones (Xti) and so I don't get what I would consider good high ISO performance out of it and I rarely will take it higher than 400 ISO even though 800 seems ok. The newer versions have much better high ISO performance, so if you have one of the newer ones, you can probably crank it up to 800, or even more without much worry of noise. That is, unless you still don't have enough light hitting your sensor.

Ultimately though you are probably looking at needing either the faster lens, flash, or both for good indoor performance. Incidentally, I think the built in flash can get you by for quite some time and be very instructive while you are learning how to use everything. You can dial down the intensity of the flash so it isn't quite so harsh and doesn't blow huge amounts of your photo; acting more like a fill light than a source of light. You will probably still get hot spots in your photos, but to me that often seems better than having them dark and noisy. There are some other "tricks" you can use to diffuse the light from the built-in flash somewhat. The pics won't be as lovely or have the depth when using off camera flash or a good shoe-mount that you have bounced off the ceiling or a wall, but you will get likely get better exposure and less noise than you will without using a flash at all. The other benefit of using the built-in flash is that you can use somewhat slower shutter speeds and you can still stop the action.

[NathanFranke]

It's possible your kid could just be blurry. You know, like Bigfoot.

[inkista]

A camera and sensor need more light to "see" by than your eyes do. What may seem like perfectly adequate lighting conditions to your eyes can be low-light shooting conditions for the camera/sensor.

To increase the shutter speed to "freeze" the action, you can do three things:

1) increase the ISO setting for higher sensitivity. You may increase the noise/grain, but you can use faster shutter speeds. Every doubling of the ISO lets you go twice as fast with the shutter speed. So, moving from iso 200 to iso 800 is:

200 -> 400 -> 800

2 stops (3EV) more light, and you could go from 1/30s to:

1/30s -> 1/60s -> 1/125s

2) you could open up the aperture on the lens. Each full-stop number on the f-stop scale is like doubling the iso. So to get two stops wider from f/8, you could go:

f/8 -> f/5.6 -> f/4

To also go from 1/30s to 1/125s.

However. Your lens has a maximum aperture. The widest it can possibly be opened. The 18-55 kit lens has a max. aperture of f/3.5-5.6. This means when zoomed all the way out to 18mm, the widest it can open up is f/3.5. And when zoomed all the way in to 55mm, it can only open up to f/5.6. If you were at 55mm, you could only open to f/5.6, not to f/4.

So, yes, this could be a limitation of your lens. And possibly getting a lens with a wider max. aperture could help you out in this situation. An EF 50mm f/1.8 II is the cheap solution for this, but most lenses are struggling to autofocus quickly in low light conditions.

3) Your third option would be to add more light to the scene: open a window, turn on a few more lights, or use flash.

How fast you need the shutter speed to go and how many stops of light you need to grab from the iso and aperture comes down to how fast your kid is moving. The faster he moves, the faster the shutter speed needs to be. Even using your highest ISO setting, and your maximum aperture, there are some shooting situations where you may just not have enough light to use that lens.

[3bayjunkie]

this doesn't make any sence. you said you were starting at 100 and going to 800. but then you show it going from 200 - 800.

[3bayjunkie]

100 - 800 is 3 stops not 2. thats why i was saying it doesn't make any sence what you are saying.

[jamesev]

Originally Posted by Doug Sundseth

The Canon 18-55 kit lens is a variable aperture f/3.5 - f/5.6 lens. A cheap alternative would be to pick up the Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens, which is about 8 times as fast as the kit lens set to 50mm.

what do you mean by 8 times as fast??