?'s regarding background, hair placement and blur

[myobsession]

Is the tree distracting in the background?
Does it matter that the tips of her fingers were cut off in the bottom of the photo?
I don't like the hair in her face. I have a hard time getting her to keep it swept back. However, is it terribly bad? I think it kind of gives a natural, playful feel.
I think the focus is off. Not sure what causes it to be somewhat blurry. I don't know a lot about my camera. I'm shooting on automatic setting. lol, that probably makes a lot of you all cringe, but I don't have a clue how to use the camera otherwise. I'm taking courses soon and hopefully it will teach me something more than youtube is, lol. As far as the blur... can this be fixed with photo editing? If so can someone please explain if it's not to difficult to do so? Thanks in advance


NikonD3000
f/5.6
ISO-200
55mm
No flash

[windrider86]

sadly once you have a blur, it blurred. plain and simple. A slight slight blur can be improved by applying an unsharp mask to the image.
It appears that your main focal point was based right off her face as that is the sharpest area.
Its ok to use manual. A good way to learn is to take different shots and then take not what the settings were. In auto they can range so its ok. Take note of your depth of field and how your photo looks and then compare the settings.
Your next go round, try and take the ame shot but this time use one of the oehr camera settings. I prefer to use aperature mode myself but that's amtter of preference.

Fingers cut off a porblem? usually yes.

[tott7000]

I kind of like her hair in her face on this shot. I agree with windrider86 that a good starting point for someone new to manual is to shoot a picture in auto, check out what shutter and f stop your camera came up with, move the dial to manual and copy the settings. It won't always work, as a matter of fact it seldom does, but....it gives you a good starting point. If your blurry, speed up your shutter and changing your iso does wonders for your exposure. Remember to always shoot in the lowest iso you can get away with though. Probably most important is "practice practice practice" and oh yeah.... have fun!

[lucas107]

id warm it up a bit but i love kids looking warm. i dont notice the blur really until im looking for it if you didnt mention it i wouldnt of noticed it. also didnt notice the fingers till ya pointed it out...the hair is fun and playful you should see my youngest boys hair in all his pics its insane hes 2 and still never had a haircut. apature mode is easy to learn and a easy place to start better then auto anyway. use small numbers to have very little in focus and big numbers to have more in focus. distance and focal lenght affect that also but its a good starting point. portraits usually have narror depth of field so use a smaller number while landscapes have a bigger dof so use a bigger number. mess around till you get something you like. dont worry to much about perfection for a long time cause it will be very very hard to do with candids of kids. if you like the picture that should be good enough. also what shutter speed was that shot at? if blur from a low shutter speed bump the iso to 400 or even 800 if the shot is exposed correctly you wont notice much noise at 800 and noise looks a lot better then blur. type exposure into google and read stuff on that. getting expose correct should be the first thing you learn way before anything else. well composed shots look bad if way to dark or blown out. also shes a girl with longish hair almost upside if her hair was perfect it would look weird.