Knee high phtography

[mugge]

I was taking photos of dogs playing around. I had my Fuji X100F set at min. 1/60 max. 2300. I was expecting 20% of useable images but they were quite soft. Most of them was taken at between 1/60 and 1/250 and iso 200 - 400. I also had aperture set at f11

The compositions were fine considering taking photos at knee high level is not that easy but I did not expect so many photos to be so out of focus as they were. What did I do wrong.
Cheers Ole

[Stagecoach]

An aperture of f/11 is pushing it a bit for moving animals, if you had opened up wider you could have upped the speed.

Are you sure it's a 'focus' problem and not 'movement blur'?

How about posting a couple of examples with the Exif Ole?

[Shadowman]

Were they close up portraits, having trouble either getting the nose/eyes in focus? Post a few.

[Manfred M]

As Grahame has suggested, motion blur is one possibility. I would probably look at a minimum shutter speed of around 1/500th second for that type of shooting. The other possibility is a focus issue. The camera has to track the subjects and if they are moving toward or away from the camera, you need to have a continuous focusing mode set. Even there, depending on your settings, the camera can select the wrong place to focus on.

As others have said, please posts some images so that we can see what the problem might be.

[mugge]

I only have three left.

[Manfred M]

First one looks like camera movement (there is no area in the image that is sharp). Too slow of a shutter speed is definitely an issue. Given the problems with the second and third shot, it's quite possible that the focus was off too.

The next two are focus misses as there are parts of the image in focus. That is likely because you used an inappropriate focus mode. The camera did not pick the correct subject to focus on.

[mugge]

First one looks like camera movement (there is no area in the image that is sharp). Too slow of a shutter speed is definitely an issue. Given the problems with the second and third shot, it's quite possible that the focus was off too.

The next two are focus misses as there are parts of the image in focus. That is likely because you used an inappropriate focus mode. The camera did not pick the correct subject to focus on.

I prefer using spot metering but in this shoot I switched to my cameras multi metering. Should I have used spot?

[Manfred M]

I prefer using spot metering but in this shoot I switched to my cameras multi metering. Should I have used spot?

This is not a metering issue but a shutter speed and focus mode issue. I rarely use spot metering but almost always use a single focus point and continuous focus using back button focus.

[george013]

A pity there's no exif info in the images. What's left now is just guessing.

George

[rpcrowe]

Each camera is a bit different... It is difficult without knowing the ins and outs of your Fuji to make any specific recommendations.

However, it seems like you might have selected an ISO range that is a bit too low. In fact, in this situation, I might have had the camera on manual exposure with the exposure controlled with auto ISO. I might have selected 1/250 second at f/11 (or even f/16 - the heck with diffraction).

If I were shooting blind (that is not being able to see the viewfinder)
I would have used burst shooting with continuous AF (AFC) and selected the wide area AF points on my Sony A6400. The wide area AF would focus on the closest subject in the frame (which normally would be the dog)

If I were able to see the viewfinder...
I would still use burst shooting but, have the camera in AFC and select the Focus Tracking - expand area spot. I would have the LCD tilted up so could see it and select the portion of the frame that I wanted to track using the touch screen and the camera would have carried on from there locking in on hat portion of the image that I selected. I would also used selected the widest focal length lens I have (in my case 16mm = 24mm equivalent).

In reality, I have my best success with "dog's eye level" shooting by using a Go-Pro camera on the end of a selfie stick. In fact we purchased a Go-Pro recently for the express purpose of shooting videos of our small dogs from their eye level (I am getting a bit old to bend over and the selfie stick solves that problem). Here is the first video we did with the Go-Pro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QyX6kryLAo
Nice thing about the Go-Pro is that it is responsive o voice commands such as "Go-Pro shoot video"

The "dog's eye height" video is between 0:52 and 1:50...

Actually, there is another way to do this... Manually focusing the lens at its hyperfocal distance (which can be determined with a chart) will give you acceptable focus from one half that distance to infinity. In the case of my 12mm lens on the Sony A6400m the hyperfocal distance is 1.7 feet (approximately .5 meters). Using the focus scale on the lens I would be in acceptable focus from .25 meters to infinity...

[Manfred M]

A pity there's no exif info in the images. What's left now is just guessing.

George

Even with the metadata we would still be guessing, but we would have a little more data to validate our opinion.

I suspect that I would have said exactly the same thing I did in #6, even if I saw the metadata. One of the skills that I have picked up over the years is to deconstruct what has happened in an image. Back in the film days, that was the only option available. Sometimes we might have the ISO rating of the film...

[george013]

Even with the metadata we would still be guessing, but we would have a little more data to validate our opinion.

I suspect that I would have said exactly the same thing I did in #6, even if I saw the metadata. One of the skills that I have picked up over the years is to deconstruct what has happened in an image. Back in the film days, that was the only option available. Sometimes we might have the ISO rating of the film...

Without exif.
Ole used a Fuji X100F, which as far as I know doesn't have a back lcd which can be pulled out.
If he meant with knee high he had his camera at knee level and he wouldn't be able to look through the viewer, so he hadn't a possibility to focus at all.
If he mentioned spot matrix metering but meant af-a he wouldn't know at all where the focus was, even when looking through the viewer at eye level. I don't know if af-a uses multiple focus points, I never used it.
What influence has the iso. I don't understand exactly what he meant with "min. 1/60 max. 2300". I don't recognize the number 2300.
I'm just not that smart.

George

[george013]

Each camera is a bit different... It is difficult without knowing the ins and outs of your Fuji to make any specific recommendations.

However, it seems like you might have selected an ISO range that is a bit too low. In fact, in this situation, I might have had the camera on manual exposure with the exposure controlled with auto ISO. I might have selected 1/250 second at f/11 (or even f/16 - the heck with diffraction).
If I were shooting blind (that is not being able to see the viewfinder)
I would have used burst shooting with continuous AF (AFC) and selected the wide area AF points on my Sony A6400. The wide area AF would focus on the closest subject in the frame (which normally would be the dog)

That would be a solution. I thought that was called af-a, with Nikon.

If I were able to see the viewfinder...
I would still use burst shooting but, have the camera in AFC and select the Focus Tracking - expand area spot. I would have the LCD tilted up so could see it and select the portion of the frame that I wanted to track using the touch screen and the camera would have carried on from there locking in on hat portion of the image that I selected. I would also used selected the widest focal length lens I have (in my case 16mm = 24mm equivalent).

In reality, I have my best success with "dog's eye level" shooting by using a Go-Pro camera on the end of a selfie stick. In fact we purchased a Go-Pro recently for the express purpose of shooting videos of our small dogs from their eye level (I am getting a bit old to bend over and the selfie stick solves that problem). Here is the first video we did with the Go-Pro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QyX6kryLAo
Nice thing about the Go-Pro is that it is responsive o voice commands such as "Go-Pro shoot video"

The "dog's eye height" video is between 0:52 and 1:50...

Actually, there is another way to do this... Manually focusing the lens at its hyperfocal distance (which can be determined with a chart) will give you acceptable focus from one half that distance to infinity. In the case of my 12mm lens on the Sony A6400m the hyperfocal distance is 1.7 feet (approximately .5 meters). Using the focus scale on the lens I would be in acceptable focus from .25 meters to infinity...

That wouldn't work when the subject is at close distance. You always will work on the extreme side of the dof. However I would give pre focusing a try. But in that case he should have the camera in a modus where the diaphragm wouldn't change.

George

[Manfred M]

Without exif.
Ole used a Fuji X100F, which as far as I know doesn't have a back lcd which can be pulled out.
If he meant with knee high he had his camera at knee level and he wouldn't be able to look through the viewer, so he hadn't a possibility to focus at all.
If he mentioned spot matrix metering but meant af-a he wouldn't know at all where the focus was, even when looking through the viewer at eye level. I don't know if af-a uses multiple focus points, I never used it.
What influence has the iso. I don't understand exactly what he meant with "min. 1/60 max. 2300". I don't recognize the number 2300.
I'm just not that smart.

George

All good thoughts George, but not required to answer Ole's question. As stated before, these are determined by examining his images to see what went wrong.

People have successfully been taking these types of pictures without AF or tilt-screens, going back to the film days. In face many of the "pro" cameras that different manufacturers have produced don't have tilt screens and people still get these types of shots using them.

That would be a solution. I thought that was called af-a, with Nikon.

No - Nikon calls it AF-C. I do almost all my shooting in using this autofocus mode.

[mugge]

I thank you all for your valuable suggestions.
Cheers Ole

[george013]

All good thoughts George, but not required to answer Ole's question. As stated before, these are determined by examining his images to see what went wrong..

Pleas Manfred, don't be that arrogant. I don't think it's up to you to say what's required to answer Ole's question. Everybody can see what's wrong. That's not the question. The WHY is the question. and then you must have more info.

People have successfully been taking these types of pictures without AF or tilt-screens, going back to the film days. In face many of the "pro" cameras that different manufacturers have produced don't have tilt screens and people still get these types of shots using them.

Yes, they did and still do. Pre focussing.

No - Nikon calls it AF-C. I do almost all my shooting in using this autofocus mode.

Learn reading. It's an answer on Richards thoughts. Which he gave with a substantiating.
But it's not only a matter of af-c, also of the selected area mode.

But at the end, I still don't think he was able to use the viewfinder or lcd screen. So he just couldn't focus at all

George

[xpatUSA]

I'm wondering why Ole's scene is any different than street photography, for which there is well-established technique called "Zone Focusing". See here, for example:

https://digital-photography-school.c...t-photography/

The very first image there has a short kid in the foreground, oddly enough.

Richard has already mentioned an instance of Zone Focusing, although his Zone is preety beeg ...

Merklinger has some relevant views too ... http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/TIAOOFe.pdf
.

[george013]

I'm wondering why Ole's scene is any different than street photography, for which there is well-established technique called "Zone Focusing". See here, for example:

https://digital-photography-school.c...t-photography/

The very first image there has a short kid in the foreground, oddly enough.

Richard has already mentioned an instance of Zone Focusing, although his Zone is preety beeg ...

Merklinger has some relevant views too ... http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/TIAOOFe.pdf
.

No difference at all.
Thread has two problems: Manfred starts discussing with me in stead of answering the question and Ole doesn't participate with giving more info.

What's discribed in your first article is just pre focusing. Now called in a Adamsian way zone focusing.

I don't think Ole knows this. But on the old lenses you had a scale that showed you the distances between which the camera would be sharp.

Ole,
From Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field.



Here you can see between which distances the image will be sharp at the given focus distance and a f-number. This scale disapeared on modern camera's and lenses. Now you need a dof calculator for it. The way it worked was focussing on a subject, then you knew the distance. Knowing that you could move that distance between the used diaphragms on the scale. But in your case you set your camara in manual focusing and choice a certain distance manual. How you must do that on your camera I don't know.
That scale on that lens is actually a kind of dof calculator.

What you can't use is auto focus as explained before. Nikon has auto area mode, that was what Richard meant so Canon does have it too. But it is gambling.

George

[Manfred M]

I'm wondering why Ole's scene is any different than street photography, for which there is well-established technique called "Zone Focusing". See here, for example:

https://digital-photography-school.c...t-photography/

The very first image there has a short kid in the foreground, oddly enough.

Richard has already mentioned an instance of Zone Focusing, although his Zone is preety beeg ...

Merklinger has some relevant views too ... http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/TIAOOFe.pdf
.

That technique could be used, but the main reason for its popularity in street photography is that the photographer can operate in "stealth mode", i.e. the subject does not know that they are being photographed. The downside is that the success rate is quite low and I am happy if I get 5% - 10% of the shots working well. The general approach is to be generous with aperture to ensure good DoF and use a high shutter speed to ensure that motion blur is not a problem.

The other issue with most modern lenses is that they are not assembled and tested on an optical bench, but are designed to be focused electronically. I've done some testing on a couple of my lenses and the markings versus distance can be off quite a bit. The focus throw of an autofocus lens tends to be a lot less than the old manual lenses (some of these lenses have a total throw not much more than 90° and some of my old lenses have a throw of close to 300°; more more accurate focusing. It speeds up autofocus, but is not great for accurate manual focus settings. Of course, most modern lenses don't bother with DoF markings either, so that does not help in making zone focusing decisions.

That is, of course, assuming that the lens in question has all these fancy markings. The current Nikkor f/1.8 35mm G is devoid of any of these features and would take a lot of work and luck to zone focus with... This is not the exception, but the rule in many cases. A quick check of my lens inventory shows that I own five modern lenses that do not have distance markings.




I still shoot the old fashioned way and crouch down and lie on my stomach to get these low level shots using the regular tools that the camera has. Not as easy as in my younger days, but it changes the perspective and is a very effective way to get images that stand out from the rest!

[rpcrowe]

I think that it is a darn shame and a disservice to photographers when camera/lens companies stopped putting the DOF scales on lenses. IMO they were very handy items for a prime lens. There were even some push-pull zoom lenses who had sort of a DOF scale but, I don't have any experience with that type of zoom.

Many of today's auto focus lenses have done away with distance scales totally like Manfred's example of the Nikon 35mm and my Sony 85mm f/1.8...

I have noticed that some manual focus lenses for e-mount cameras are coming out with DOF scales. The new Viltrox 20mm f/1.8 is one lens that incorporates a DOF scale. Of course, I wouldn't purchase a lens based on it having a DOF scale but, it is nice when one does. This is especially true when manually focusing a lens...

One thing when shooting without a viewfinder to help you. You need to ensure that you are not closer than he minimum focusing distance of the lens. I played around with my A6400 and Sigma 30mm lens using f/16 and continuous AF with wide field selected. All of the shots that are beyond one foot (minimum focusing distance) are sharp because the camera selected the dog. However, when the dog came closer than a foot, he was no longer in focus. Some lenses like my Sony 16mm f/2.8 are capable of focusing a bit closer. That lens minimum focus distance is ten inches...