“Darren I love digital photography but one of my greatest frustrations is that I when I’m out using my camera I will check how my images look on my camera and they look fantastic but when I get home and upload them to my computer they are look quite average, usually blurry or slightly out of focus.” Question submitted by Geoff.
Thanks for your question Geoff – I suspect you are not alone with this problem – in fact I’ve suffered from it myself from time to time.
The issue is that on the two to three inch LCD screen on the back of your camera images tend to look very neat and sharp as the faults in your image are all compressed tightly in together and are much smaller. However when you use a larger screen the faults in your image become much clearer.
The main advice that I’d give is to get in the habit of checking the photos that you take not only as the camera automatically shows you on the LCD but by zooming in a little.
Most digital cameras allow you to play back your photos in ‘preview’ mode and to zoom in and analyze just parts of your image. Check your camera’s instructions to work out how to do it but on many cameras it’s a little button with a magnifying glass icon.
I don’t do this with every shot that I take – but periodically through a shoot will quickly zoom in on a few images (particularly on the focal points of shots) to check that they are sharp enough. This is especially important if you think you’ve just taken a ‘money shot’.
When you’re zooming in particularly examine the main focal point of your shots. For example if I’m photographing a person I’ll zoom in on the eyes to make sure they’re as sharp as possible.
Most of the time the shots are fine – but by taking a nice close look at my shots if I find that I’m not getting the results I’m after I can then make adjustments accordingly on the spot and retake the shot rather than getting home and finding that it’s too late.
Some Older Comments