Focus issues?

[gimmie5]

I just purchased a Tamron 28-75 f2.8 for my Nikon D60 and this is one of the first photos using the new lens. I love the photo, but am wondering if the focus is OK. Are the eyes a bit soft? I also used a high ISO seeing I was using the moring natural light in my living room.

EXIF:
Camera Nikon D60
Exposure 1/80
Aperature f4.5
Focal Length 48mm
ISO 1600
No flash

[wejustin]

I like the picture with the exception of the eyes but for the opposite reason. I think the eyes look very sharp. They almost look unnatural, the whites look too white and to sharp to me. Did you do any PP on them?

[gimmie5]

I did try sharpening the picture a bit, but I did not touch the whites of the eyes. That is the actual color. Any suggestions regarding that?

[locojain]

Hey,

That kid is so adorable and so is the pic.
The first thing I noticed in the image is the eye.. really sharp and nice. I think I'd go with it and have no issues with it. but yea diff viewers have diff perspective. u got to chose what you like..
Agreed that eyes are too white at some spot and too black at the others, but as said its not a huge flaw. can be passed. but yea if u cud correct it would be good.

The whole picture is good.. nice framing, pose and exposure. BUT shooting at and ISO of more than 400 is highly not recommended. it adds a lot of noise to the picture, which can be seen when you zoom to 100% or more. even at the size you could see noise on the table near the kids right arm. ISO 1600 is too high I would say.. way too high.

Nice capture though..

[kristenh]

i think its beautiful. love the light, think the focus is great, think the eyes are fine. i suspect you did what you had to do re ISO and i am not seeing grain that worries me (on my laptop; i guess i could go upstairs to the big monitor and blow it up and examine it, but i'm too lazy for that). possibly you could have opened up your aperture a bit more to get the same shutter speed with a lower ISO, not sure. but i think you're wise not to have a slower shutter speed for a little kid. well done.

[gimmie5]

Thanks everyone for your advice. Like I said, I just got this lens and am learning as I go. I will definitely work with the aperture next time and see if I can bring the ISO down. I'm assuming that things will begin to make more sense as I work with the lens more.

Thanks again for offering suggestions!

What is your light source? You seem to have sufficient light that 1600 ISO is not really needed. Lower ISO will mean less noise.. less noise will give you a better image as noise sometimes appears to soften an image. Also I do not know if the D60 uses noise filters by default at that ISO... but those always make the image softer.

All that asked and said..

When I pull up your image so it is larger, I can see that the camera has focused well forward of your subjects eyes.. most likely on his arm. The eyes are at the very back of the limits of depth of field so they are almost out of focus. Correct focus on the eyes themselves and you will have a great shot.

(which brings up questions about how you are focusing? Let the camera choose the focus spot? Are you focus and recompose.. etc?)

[SwissJon]

I'm in agreement with Papa.

When you have time to focus,switch to manual. It's a lot easier to get the right thing in focus like that.. My camera has a setting where the live view magnifies a small area at the centre of the screen so I can get a lot more accurate with the focus. So I focus using that and then recompose the shot.. I do it so regularly these days it takes me only a second or so, and means I don't have to many shots when the wrong thing is in focus.. For all the great things that can be said about automatic settings on a camera, they're no where near as good as doing it yourself.

[gimmie5]

Thanks again for the advice. My light source was a table lamp to camera left and whatever light was coming in through the living room window behind me. I took the photo in the morning, so that is why I chose a high ISO.

As for focus, I used auto focus and focused on his eyes, or actually the bridge of his nose between the two eyes. That is why I was a bit surprised the the possible focal point could be toward his arm.