Would the Focus remain optimum even if the subject moves the eye look again?

[snowshine]

Ok, i am obsessed with focus today. My Canon 40D used with it's kit lens 17-85mm.
It is not the optimum lighting condition for photography.

In the following photo, mid-day sun in UK. Not the recommended time for photography.

I lock the focus [centre AF point used] on the pupil the subject, & prior to I release the shutter button my subject move the eyes and look back into the camera. I do not seem to like the sharpness.

Should I use a tripod or larger aperture 11 or higher to get the sharpness I am after?? I wonder. or invest in an Canon L lens?



Regards

I was so much thinking of the focus: I failed to realise my metadata;
Yes Mine here was F/16 1/5 ISO 100 Hand held. My daughter would not sit me to take her photo just tried to capture her portrait completely immersed in my thoughts about "Focus lock"

[Jim B.]

The EXIF data for the photo reads you were at f/16 and the exposure was 1/5 second.Even with IS the shutter speed is a bit low.f/16 might introduce some defraction which will make the image a little soft,plus the slow SS will show camera and subject movement adding to the problem.
You could use a tripod or, handheld,open the aperture to f/8 and adjust your ISO until you get a shutter speed of 1/10 second or higher.
Others with more experience will surely offer you some feedback.

[Dave Humphries]

Ok, i am obsessed with focus today. My Canon 40D used with it's kit lens 17-85mm.
It is not the optimum lighting condition for photography.

In the following photo, mid-day sun in UK. Not the recommended time for photography.

I lock the focus [centre AF point used] on the pupil the subject, & prior to I release the shutter button my subject move the eyes and look back into the camera. I do not seem to like the sharpness.

Should I use a tripod or larger aperture 11 or higher to get the sharpness I am after?? I wonder. or invest in an Canon L lens?



Regards

Hi snowshine (did you ever tell us your first name?)

OK, you posted this at 1,599px × 1,515px which is good.

I agree it is not highly sharp, but there are two things that may give this result;
shutter speed
sharpening

Taking a) first, this was shot at f16 at 100iso (in the shade with a reflector I would guess), however, this has still resulted in a shutter speed of only 1/5 second. Even assuming the camera is on a tripod, that's quite a long exposure at this close range not to pick up slight subject movement, if only from your daughter breathing. You can see some blurring of her hair in the breeze too.
UPDATE: I just read your last sentence - are you saying this wasn't using a tripod? If handheld at that speed, even with IS on kit lens, I am amazed it is this good.

b) Maybe you didn't sharpen (or PP) because you were trying to show us how bad it is, but I would point out that everyone else's shots you see are sharpened by the time you see them.
How does this look?


I think it's not too bad, and that was from a jpg.
What did I do?
1) Open in Elements 8 (what do you use?)
2) Apply capture sharpening (USM: 300%, 0.3px, 2th)
3) Because there's no detail under the hair, I used a levels dialog to insert 5 levels at the black end, so I could ...
4) Apply some Local Contrast Enhancement (USM: 20%, 50px, 0th)
5) Re-size for CiC to 700px wide
6) Apply output sharpening (USM: 80%, 0.6px, 3th)

Regarding step 3, if some Fill light had been used in PP, there should have been some detail recoverable in the hair either side of the neck.

In summary:

Having an L series lens won't make as much difference as good sharpening technique and that's free to learn (from Colin) and even if you need to buy something like Elements to do it with, it's a lot cheaper than one lens and will benefit all of your shots.

If you must shoot that slow, yes, get a tripod and have your model's hold their breath.

Normally I doubt one would use an aperture as small as f16, or even f11, for a portrait (without flash).

I would suggest you reshoot using f8 and iso400, giving a shutter speed of 1/100s, still not fast, but better for handheld. Then we can assess sharpness without camera shake and model movement being such a risk of upsetting the results, as they undoubtedly have with this image.

If you just want to assess sharpness, why not use a static subject instead of your daughter and flash to remove the camera shake aspect altogether?

Hope that helps clarify a few things, if you have any questions, ask away,

[snowshine]

Hi Dave
My name is Arun.
My Daughter was sitting by the patio door inside the room and I did not use any reflectors.
I was sitting on the floor indoor aimed the camera slightly upward towards her & called her and quickly tried to focus lock and shutter release.

I do not have Photo elements but cropped in my Apple's "Aperture"

You have sharped it to my liking. That is very good in my eyes. Thanking you.
I am not familiar with post processing and sharpening but have to spend some time to learn.

I will follow your suggestion with regard to Aperture size & a static subject let know the results.

Thank you

Regards

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Dave
My name is Arun.
My Daughter was sitting by the patio door inside the room and I did not use any reflectors.
I was sitting on the floor indoor aimed the camera slightly upward towards her & called her and quickly tried to focus lock and shutter release.

I do not have Photo elements but cropped in my Apple's "Aperture"

You have sharped it to my liking. That is very good in my eyes. Thanking you.
I am not familiar with post processing and sharpening but have to spend some time to learn.

I will follow your suggestion with regard to Aperture size & a static subject let know the results.

Thank you

Regards

Hi Arun,

Thanks for the info.

For a grabbed portrait shot, rather than a test shot, it's a good capture at that speed, I mis-understood.
(I have done a lot of that today, so much so that I feel I should shut myself in a room until it passes)

I guess the 'reflector look' must come from the sun hitting the floor just inside the patio doorway then.

I am unfamiliar with Apple's Aperture, so I don't know if those % units in USM will be appropriate, but you can probably work it out. (Some PP software uses numbers instead of percent, basically "0.80" might be equivalent to my "80%", or 3.00 = 300%, etc.)

Cheers,

[Colin Southern]

Hi Arun,

In my opinion it's a very GOOD shot for one that's been shot at 1/5th second!

In the same circumstance I would have used F5.6 or F8 and an ISO of around 400 which would have given you a shutterspeed of somewhere around 1/100th which would go a long way to removing camera shake.

[revi]

Very nice portrait indeed.

And as for sharpening, that was one of the first things I started learning here, and probably the most useful
(2nd: don't worry about ISO noise; thanks Colin ...)

Remco

[snowshine]

Hi Arun,

In my opinion it's a very GOOD shot for one that's been shot at 1/5th second!

In the same circumstance I would have used F5.6 or F8 and an ISO of around 400 which would have given you a shutterspeed of somewhere around 1/100th which would go a long way to removing camera shake.

Thank you Collin, very much appreciated.
I will follow your advice. [I may be digressing a bit escuse me. I got it in my mind from film days that if I shoot any higher than ISO 100 my picture is going to be grainy!! It is my ignorance. I use to remember an ad by Fuji for ISO 400: Yul Brynner sitting by a single candle lit photo very sharp - Inside cover of Readers Digest magazine. It may be that I always think in my mind I am going to blow them up to bill-board size but never enlarged a photo large enough to know them better.]

My self just wake up

Regards

[Klickit]

........ that if I shoot any higher than ISO 100 my picture is going to be grainy!!

Regards

Someone here - and I think it was Colin - said recently that it is better to get a grainy, but sharp image at ISO400 than to miss the shot, or get motion blur using the "correct" ISO.

Arun, I'm pretty astonished at what you have achieved here with a hand-held shot. Very nice.

[Colin Southern]

Someone here - and I think it was Colin - said recently that it is better to get a grainy, but sharp image at ISO400 than to miss the shot, or get motion blur using the "correct" ISO.

Hi Kit,

Remember this series of shots?



How was the grain, not too distracting I hope? (yep, they were all shot at ISO 400, and nobody even noticed)

And how bad is this image at ISO 3200?



So long as you don't crop too heavily and expose correctly then High ISO modes will do a LOT less "damage" than camera shake or insufficient Depth of Field.

[snowshine]

Hi Colin,
Wonderful portrait with pinpoint sharpness.

I have really learnt something-I am going to set my camera ISO higher.
Regards

[Dave Humphries]

I am going to set my camera ISO higher.

.. and the beauty of digital is you can change it 'part way through the roll', by which I mean; if conditions warrant it, I'll change mine manually almost shot by shot.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Colin,
Wonderful portrait with pinpoint sharpness.

Actually, it was quite a soft capture for some reason -- but some careful sharpening sorted it out.

I have really learnt something-I am going to set my camera ISO higher.
Regards

I'll look forward to seeing the results! It's better to ruin a few pixels and save the image, as they say.