Daughter's New Haircut

[TraceyHill3]

Feel free to critique other aspects of this photo, but what I really want to ask about is why does her hair look so sharp on the left? Is it because of the shutter speed? How do I fix this in post?



Camera Nikon D90
Exposure 0.001 sec (1/1250)
Aperture f/2.8
Focal Length 35 mm
ISO Speed 200
Exposure Bias 0 EV

[kelleyrie]

You can try blurring that section of hair a bit to make it match the focus of the rest of the picture but I think what happened is that your focus point fell on her hair rather that her eyes. You were using a larger aperture... that leaves very little room for error. DOF at 2.8 is not very big so you have to super careful that you have focus exactly where you want it.

[Meaghan Foster]

I like this particualr photo! nice lighting, and positioning!
yes, I also think you should blur some that side of her hair as said in the comment above.

[SusanH1970]

As Kelly said, her hair looks sharpest on the left because that's where focus fell when you took the shot. How and where are you focusing? Did you focus and recompose? Again, as Kelly said, if you used this method, f/2.8 doesn't leave you much room for correct focus.

I wouldn't bother trying to blur her hair; it would only make a missed-focus shot look like you tried to fix it. The eyes could maybe stand a bit of sharpening; you could try Vinnie's tutorial here: How to - Selective Sharpening & Selective Skin Softening. It's not a quick fix for OOF shots but when the focus has JUST been missed, it's a good save sometimes.

[sk66]

Personally, I think her left eye is in focus and the hair on her rt is sharp simply because it is at the same distance as her eye.

I would not just blur the hair, I would enhance the eye.

[TraceyHill3]

Thank you all for the help! I should have watched the focus. I just assumed her eyes would be in focus because I thought I put the focus on the middle of the picture. I will try again keeping that in mind and I'll try to fix in post. Thanks again!

[SGToliver]

I second sk66 on this. Seems to me the hair just fell into the same focal plane as the her left eye. This photo looks fine to me.