Blurry Candid

[Alexandra Hall]

I have this problem often, when I am taking candids many of them come out blurry and not because of a slow shutter speed. Is it because my aperture is to big? As far as I knew, in autofocus the camera won't take the shot if it hasn't focused. I have some shots of this same baby that are blurry but the mom's shoulder is in focus, correct me if I am wrong, but I am sure that those are due to the wide aperture. I just don't know what happened to this one though. Also, how can a figure out what aperture I need to keep everything in focus that I want in focus? Or is there a way to autofocus on the baby and not the mom's shoulder quickly?

Also what do you guys think of the exposure? I feel as though it is slightly underexposed. These are both sooc.

Here are both the shots I am talking about.



Exif:

Camera Nikon D3000

Exposure 0.001 sec (1/800)

Aperture f/1.8

Focal Length 50 mm

ISO Speed 100

Exposure Bias +2 EV

Flash No Flash

[Doug Sundseth]

It looks to me like the baby's right index finger is in focus.

The problem is indeed your aperture. At f/1.8 your depth of field is razor thin. For more information, see DoF Master.

Recommendations: If you want to stay at f/1.8, do not use more than one focusing point on your camera, and make sure that point is pinned to the nearer eye of your subject. (If you're using multiple focus points, the camera will grab the one with the most contrast, which here was the near finger, not the face.)

If you're willing to get more background detail, go to a smaller aperture. Assuming you were at about 10' from your subject, an aperture of f/5.6 will give you about 2' in focus, you can keep the same ISO, and your shutter speed will drop to 1/100 (+/-). (With the 3000, I'd probably go to ISO 200, though, since IIRC that's the base ISO for that camera. If ISO 100 isn't shown as LOW 1.0, though, ignore that.)

[SGToliver]

+1 to what Doug said. the depth of field would be fine if you just took the camera off of auto focus and put it on single focus point. It may seem a bit cumbersome at first but once you do it long enough it will just be second nature to you.

[Alexandra Hall]

Thank you all for your comments! It has helped tremendously