Indoor blur

[Blaub]

I have been a second shooter for a bunch of weddings lately, and the photographer seems to be very happy with all of my sharp, creative outdoor shots, but ALMOST ALL of my indoor shots are slightly blurry.

This isn't major blur, but enough that when they are uploaded to the computer, I wouldn't want to give it to a client. I use a canon 40d with a 580 flash unit. Most of my shots are taken with a 50 1.8 indoors, using bounce flash. To try to get crisper photos indoors, I usually try to keep a fast shutter speed and wide aperture. (I am using the high speed sync or whatever its called on the flash so that I am able to use fast shutter speeds). I just can't understand why the moment I come inside, my photos lose their crispness.

Does anyone have any ideas on what my problem could be? I am getting so discouraged with this...

[fletch]

It would help if you posted an example so we cauld see what the problem is. Without that we can tell you what the options are:

1. Motion blur or camera shake: You shutter speed is to slow and the blur is being caused by you moving the camera or people in shot moving during the exposure. This will give you streaky pics with poorly defined edges.

2. Out of focus - Using a very large aperture will mean your focus has to be spot on to the inch. This can be difficult in low light. If it isn't you will get blury soft pictures.

3. ISO noise - If you are using very high ISOs you could get a lot of grain and maybe some softening due to over agressive noise reduction. This will give you either a speckled look or have all of the detail look smeary.

Without the pics I couldn't tell you what is wrong. You shouldn't need high speed sync when taking pics indoors though. That is for shots in bright light where you need the flash as fill but the ambient light is too bright for the flash sync speed.

[milosh]

Judging from the settings you say you use, it seems like the blur is probably caused by lack of focus, and not by slow shutter speeds. Like Fletch said, with your lens and a wide aperture, the dof is very small and is easy to miss focus with moving people. Maybe you could provide a few examples here together with exif info and some of the more experienced members could help you better.

[benjimum]

This thread helps me also, thanks for asking the question and thanks for the tips!