Out of focus or something else?

[eddieshomate]

My name is Eddie Shomate and I am just getting started into wedding photography. On a recent engagement photo shoot in Raleigh NC, I was shooting a couple in the woods because they were really into the outdoors type stuff. When I got back home and started editing I noticed that it looked like almost all of my photos from the woods were coming out looking blurry or even smudged. Now I am almost certain it is not a focus issue because I refocus for every shot and always use the center cross-type point right on the eyes. Does anyone have a good explanation for what is causing the blurry/washed out look of this picture and any suggestions on how to avoid it in the future? I am thinking lens hood? To get a good idea you really need to download the hi-res image from flicker and zoom into 100% to see what I'm talking about. It's especially noticeable along the edges of her white shirt and also at the edge of both of their jeans. To me it looks like severe chromatic aberration, but should it be this bad using this quality of lens? Also any suggestions on white balance and color correction would be helpful. Thanks in advance!



EXIF:
Camera: Canon XSI
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.4
Av: 1.4
Tv: 1/400
ISO: 100

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[jcspenny]

Originally Posted by eddieshomate

EXIF:
Camera: Canon XSI
Lens: Canon 50mm 1.4
Av: 1.4
Tv: 1/400
ISO: 100

With an aperture of 1.4 you're going to have a very thin depth of field, only a very small portion of the image will be in focus. A smaller aperture (larger number) will give you a larger depth of field and thus more of the image will appear in focus.

[eddieshomate]

jcspenny, I was going for the low DOF and was properly focused on their eyes so they should have been in focus with everything else out of focus, but it appears that everything is out of focus?

[inkista]

Agreed. f/1.4 is the enemy here. Looking at the railings and the leaves on the ground, it looks like the DoF just isn't where you want it to be. Focusing is critical, and if you did a half-press and recompose, with the lens wide open at f/1.4, the small movement of the recompose can be enough to throw off where those two or three inches of DoF are placed.

In addition to that, your lens is going to be softer wide open than at nearly any other aperture setting. You could probably have stopped down to f/4 and still had background blur. It's not like you won't get any blurring unless you're shooting at f/1.4. Moderation in all things. You had plenty of light to work with, you could easily have stopped down.

Just to show you what I mean about the sharpness and stopping down, take a look at the dpreview test data for the EF 50mm f/1.4 USM. Play with the aperture wheel. That lens is at its sharpest in the f/4-f/5 range. Even just stopping down to f/2.8 would've given you a noticeable improvement in sharpness.

[Niresangwa]

Originally Posted by eddieshomate

jcspenny, I was going for the low DOF and was properly focused on their eyes so they should have been in focus with everything else out of focus, but it appears that everything is out of focus?

Many lenses are soft when wide open, and have to be stopped down to get the desired sharpness. Assuming you were using a 50/1.4 prime? Perhaps look up some lens reviews and see how it performs wide open.

The downloadable size you have on offer isnt nearly large enough to look closely for CA, but again, wide open its not uncommon.

As for why it was washed out, shooting into the sun won't help with that.. if you want to get rid of it that is.

EDIT: skip to the conclusion on the DPRevie link I gave you. Probably have your answer.

[edbayani]

the only sharp area is the rope on the left. i think it is really a dof problem. color is also on the red side.

[eddieshomate]

Here is the link to download the hi-res version: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5170/...a8c164_b_d.jpg. Zoom all the way in to 100% and look closely around the edges of her white shirt and jeans. I understand this has something to do with the aperture but could it also have something to do with back-lighting? Again I'm fairly confident this is not a focus problem, but I could be wrong...

[Peapod Photo]

Just a suggestion... but shouldn't you know the reasons as to these things before you go charging people for your services?

[corvus2606]

Originally Posted by Peapod Photo

Just a suggestion... but shouldn't you know the reasons as to these things before you go charging people for your services?

Quoting for truth

Either you have a crappy lense, or you're opening your aperture too far. f/1.4 is pretty wide, and gives a very shallow depth of field. rule of thumb(which isn't 100% accurate) your DOF in inches is about the same as your f stop. this applies to wide apertures only, so by that, your DOF would be 1.4" deep. now, because of distance, that will become deeper, but its still not much. try bumping up your iso and clising your aperture to f/4 or so

[eddieshomate]

Peapod I'm sure you knew everything there is to know about photography when you started your business, but the rest of us mere mortals do not have that luxury. Forgive me for trying to improve