HELP! Why do my pics look like this?

[angiestarr]

Take a look at this pic

[PS*]

The focus on the first one is off. The second one isn't that bad really. He just needed to have more light on his face.
Where are you metering from?
Your images might be a more sharp if you'd stop down a little more. Its really fun to shoot at 1.8 b but you can stop down and still get the good d.o.f that you are looking for. At 1.8 if he isn't facing you directly one eye will not be in focus, stopping down also helps with this and gets more of the image in focus.

[kelleyrie]

i agree the focus is off in the first one and the second really just needs some light on the face, maybe with a reflector if you don't want to use a flash

[zona5101]

PS* & Kelleyrie nailed it: focus and depth of field.

[pjflan7]

the solutions are already given, you do realize that both of these are backlit and the faces are thrown into shadow...you either need a light fill flash both to light up the face but also for catchlights in the eyes......otherwise use a reflector to bounce the light backwards onto the children so they are well lit....If you are shooting with a shutter speed in the thousandths...you have too much light and you should stop down........f8 really will most likely give you the results you are looking for with additional front lighting

[Benji]

The word "photograph" comes to us from two Greek words that mean "light drawn" or "light-writing." So if the light is clear, sharp and good, the light written image will be clear, sharp and good. If not neither will the written image. Some points:

Using backlighting on a subject and obtaining good frontal lighting takes lots of practice and lots of know how to get a good image.

High ISO images tend to be soft and lackluster.

Wide open apertures tend to render soft images.

So what happens when we combine a not so well lit subject, at a high ISO with the camera at the widest aperture? Three strikes and yer out!

Benji

[ARose4me7305]

Raising your ISO would probably help also. 200 is a bit low for that shot.

[karen_s]

I would agree with narrowing the aperture a bit and slowing the shutter accordingly. The DOF at 1.8 is pretty narrow and a smaller aperture would give a bit more wiggle room for focus. I'd keep the 200 ISO or even lower it to 100 if the light allows. (The pictures do not look all that noisy to me.)

And you may already do this while shooting portraits but just in case, be sure to focus on the eyes. Set your camera to focus only once (on the Canon side it's called "One Shot" focus), then place that tiny little focal point in the viewfinder square on one of the eyes, pre-focus by pressing the shutter halfway, then recompose the shot and take the picture.

By the way, the compositions are very nice and the subject is adorable :-)

[Swisstony10]

As has already been said, the composition is sound (and he IS pretty cute, which gives you a headstart) - but bouncing a little light onto his face, or using a teeny bit of fill flash would make a terrific difference to those pictures. If you look at the second one in particular - a lovely close up - there's no catchlight in his eyes. A little point of light in each eye would make him much more... I don't know... Sparkly?

Russ.

[GadgetVirtuoso]

This first photo is a problem I had a lot when I first started, the camera was focusing on something I wasn't intending for it to focus on. If you want to use auto-focus, I would, learn how to make your camera focus on what you want then move to compose the shot. For kids this is a tough one sometimes. Another option is take the camera off auto-focusing on all points and select a single point. If you don't know what you're shooting from moment to moment setting auto-focus to the center is problem the best bet.

This kind of focusing problem will be most apparent in shallow depth of field shots that the f1.8 give you. Moving up with f8 in such a sunny scene will help even when the focus is off a little.

I'm wondering why you're using ISO 200 with such a fast shutter in an obviously bright setting? Are you using a Nikon?