Sharp enough?

[Lois khalafalla]

I have been working on getting the focus right. What do you think about the focus in this shot? Are the eyes clear and sharp? What about the total feel of the portrait? Thank you for commenting.



shutter speed 1/80
no flash
240mm
F5/6
ISO 800
shutter priority

[cphoniball]

Looking at the large size on flickr, it looks a little blurry. I can't tell if it's from missing focus or from motion blur, but since you took it at 240mm and 1/80th of a second, I'm guessing it's motion blur from hand-holding the camera. I know you're limited by your lens, but I would recommend getting closer and using a shorter focal length. Since you're using a variable-aperture lens, the aperture will be larger at a shorter focal length, and the shutter speed you can feasibly hand-hold at will decrease.

Generally you want to get some light into the eyes of your subject to give them a bit of a sparkle. Here your subjects eyes are in shadow, so next time try to work on catching him when he's fully facing the light.

Overall, your exposure looks a bit dark. Unfortunately you're not really going to be able to do much about that shooting indoors with that lens. If you can I'd recommend getting a 50mm 1.8. At $100 it'll let you shoot indoors with available light.

As for the feel of your portrait, to me it looks like you took a portrait of a kid sitting at a table somewhere. What do you want the feel of the portrait to be? It helps to have some idea of what you want your picture to portray before you take it (although that isn't always possible).

Hope that wasn't too harsh, everything I mentioned was in the hopes of helping. Keep trying

[Lois khalafalla]

Oh thank you very much. No, no, not too harsh. That's what I need. I am learning. I do have a 55mm lens. I used the long one because the dof is better. But now I have more information to make a better decision. Thank you again. Lois