HELP! Blurry Subjects

[katia]

Seems like you've got your issue solved

But for me, the post processing in the first photo you posted (not the SooC one) is way way overexposed. I find the exposure in your original to be much more pleasing to the eye. In the corrected version, everybodoes skin seems to be glowing like Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Overall, I don't think it's too bad of a shot. If you do some sharpening and only print this one small, it might turn out pretty well.

Also, what's that guys name in the middle. I SWEAR I KNOW HIM! Lol

[katia]

Originally Posted by Krstgarrison

Thanks so much for all of y'all help. It really means a lot and has helped tremendously!

But, Richard, why would a filter make photos soft? I was always under the impression filters help with clarity.

Oops, forgot to answer this. Generally, filters don't help clarity, they can actually hinder it.

Think of it this way. If you look through thin glass, things will look pretty good. You might not even be able to tell there's glass there, if it's clean enough. If you look through thick glass, or many separate layers of glass, things start to look out of focus/soft/darker.

A filter is just another piece of glass in front of the lens, that the light has to get through. Sometimes it causes the light to bounce around funny inside your lenses too, causing weird reflections and flares.

[dakwegmo]

Originally Posted by Krstgarrison

Thanks so much for all of y'all help. It really means a lot and has helped tremendously!

But, Richard, why would a filter make photos soft? I was always under the impression filters help with clarity.

A filter is an additional piece of glass that was not engineered specifically to work with the lens you're using. Even in the very best circumstances they're likely to diminish the optical quality of the lens. For some types of filters, such as circular polarizers, the benefit of the polarization may greatly outweigh the diminished optics. In the case of UV filters, your images really don't gain anything by using one, but if you have a cheap one on the lens, your images could suffer considerably.

[Krstgarrison]

Thank y'all so much for clearing that up! I was really under the wrong impression about filters. This thread has helped tremendously. I'm excited to have joined this forum and can't wait to learn from such amazing people

[inkista]

I'm with everybody else. The flash power output's too high, which is why you've got blown highlights on the faces. And you're using a superzoom lens, which isn't going to be the greatest for sharpness. You may have just hit a weak point in the zoom range. And you're shooting wide open. Stopping down to f/8 would probably have done wonders for sharpness with that kind of lens, and would have reduced the amount of flash in the scene.

Fill flash outdoors is a great tool, but you have to know how to balance it against the ambient light correctly to get the contrast and dynamic range you want. Shooting in a fully automatic mode on the camera is not the way to gain that kind of control, because the camera will take too many controls out of your hands: flash output power, aperture, shutter speed, iso, etc.

[zephod]

F8, dial down the pop up (or better yet NEVER EVER USE IT). As bright as the day looked and as nice a background as you have I might have even said f11. If you insist on using your pop up flash get a diffuser of some kind for it. As always it's only my .02 .


D

ps Composition is good it really is a matter of getting your ISO->Aperture->Shutter speed correct.

[Krstgarrison]

So by dialing down my aperture to f8-f11 may help getting all subjects in focus? I know there are a few other factors, but that should be the biggest aspect, right? I've been searching and studying aperture and the usage of flash like crazy this week. Thanks for all of the advice!

[zephod]

Take 5 to 10 smallish household items (say domino size) and line them up about 6 inches to a foot apart then focus on the center of your line where you can see all the items. Set your fstop as high as you can and take a picture (put your camera on aperture control) then scale through all of your possible fstops using flash when needed and then sit down in whatever viewer you want and really look at the pictures. Remember you are not changing anything but the aperture and you will begin to get a bigger picture. FWIW domino's are perfect for this. If you make the horizontal and vertical line you will get an even better idea of how changing the aperture changes your photo.


D