Still seems a little blurry to me...

[ChristyRosePhoto]

Ok here is another shot that I took from the Bridal shoot and I love it. No matter what a lot of the shots at this location seemed blurry. The weather that way was about 35 degree's and windy. I didn't shoot with a tripod (didnt have one yet.) Any tips on getting a more stable shot?



F/4

1/400sec

ISO 100

75MM focal length

No flash

[NicoleScraps]

My best guess would be that this is a focus and DOF issue. If you look at the wooden part of the tracks in front of the bride and to the right, that area is the most of focus of anything in the photo.
Probably you had your focus point set to that spot when it should have been on the bride. Read in your owners manual how to change focus points and I am sure that will help out in the future.
Great shot though!

[SusanH1970]

I took a look at the larger version on Flickr and it appears the focus fell on the rail on the bottom left of the photo; that's the sharpest part of the photo. How and where are you focusing?

ETA: LOL Nicole, we were posting at the same time.

[MrJones]

looking at some of the other photos on flickr, I have to agree with Susan and Nicole.
my guess is your focus point is not set correctly, probably set to one of the left focus points.
looking at your photos, you always nail the focus in the wrong spot, meaning there is always one object which is in focus instead of the eyes or face.

[wejustin]

It looks like there is a train coming at her in the background ! I agree with the other posts on the focus.

[Niresangwa]

+1 that it appears the focal plane fell about a foot or two short, f4 will be rather slender. It might be of benefit to you to look into center point focusing, then recomposing. If you're alrady using center point focusing, your camera may like to change it's mind if you then recompose if you have it in AF-C mode (not sure what other platforms call it.. AI Servo?). It also appears you were somewhat shooting into the sun which will also give the AF system a harder time establishing what you want..

[Life in Motion]

Since the focus is off a little but the shot is sooo far away you could just sharpen the area a bit more that she's in. then just up the midtones a tad, looks a bit dark for my taste, but could be my screen. makes her stand out a bit more and can see the details in her dress more also i find when i go to print.....blacks usually print darker than on my screen in my experience with my lab.

i had a play with the image for fun.......love the idea of this image.....great shot!

slight vintage color...texture i added may be a bit strong, but wanted to try it for fun...



washed aged color....

[ChristyRosePhoto]

Thank you so much for all the help. These critiques are helping me learn! I do not start classes till next year so in the meantime I am trying to self teach. I will read up on changing focal points and practice this weekend.

Life In Motion

That looks great! I do not have photoshop yet ( I am getting it next year) the only things I have access to is picnik which I dont believe has the availability to sharpen just one area of the picture (just the whole.)

Thank you allf or your help I am learning a lot!

[Life in Motion]

Originally Posted by ChristyRosePhoto

Thank you so much for all the help. These critiques are helping me learn! I do not start classes till next year so in the meantime I am trying to self teach. I will read up on changing focal points and practice this weekend.

Life In Motion

That looks great! I do not have photoshop yet ( I am getting it next year) the only things I have access to is picnik which I dont believe has the availability to sharpen just one area of the picture (just the whole.)

Thank you allf or your help I am learning a lot!

I actually use photobrush-5 which you can get a free trial for a month, and then don't have to buy it unless you really like it....and if you do it's only 40 dollars to buy, which you can get gimp for free, but it has a much steeper learning curve. It does all the basics of photoshop only i think that it is very easy to self learn by playing around a little. my advice is get a free trial of some editing program, and in a month of the free trial make it your goal to learn all the editing ropes. The great thing about editing software is it all will use basically the same terminology....so pick one that is relatively easy to learn on at first then upgrade when you feel you've outgrown it's capabilities. anyway that is what i did and worked for me .

After you choose what program to free trial, the greatest tool to you will be stalking the critique and before and after threads, finding styles of editing you like then try to mimic the steps and learn the terminology behind editing pics. this will teach you faster and better than anything.

GOOD LUCK......i think you have a good eye for composition and like your ideas i've seen so far, just research and practice and research and practice some more. you're off to a great start.

[Naois]

I found GIMP to be a very good little tool for photoediting, and it's free!