Learned my lesson...

DavidTO

Well, I have to come out and admit it...

when shooting with a flash, I am exceedingly lazy. I put the camera on program mode and shoot away.

Bad idea, for the most part. I was shooting my cousin's daughter's (what does that make her to me?) birthday yesterday.

Anyway, I ended up with a lot of soft shots, since when you set the camera like that you get a shutter speed of 1/60. And let me tell you, those kids are moving fast.

So, as a cautionary tale, for all you learning photophiles out there, in a situation like that set your camera (20D, in my case) to shutter priority, and make sure that you are working at a fast enough shutter to keep the images from getting soft. Then the flash is just fill, not being depended on for the entire exposure.

Here's an example of a shot that could have been great, but I flubbed it:



It looks like he's posing, but let me tell you, he was in that position for a split second. They were moving fast.

and believe me, there are much worse that I didn't even bother to process.

GREAPER

Just another note on using shutter priority. (yes, learned the hard way). Check your camera's max sync speed. If you set the shutter higher than that you will have underexposed bars where the shutter is blocking part of the frame when the flash goes off.

wxwax

David old boy, I reckon that's an excellent shot.

gus

GREAPER wrote:

Just another note on using shutter priority. (yes, learned the hard way). Check your camera's max sync speed. If you set the shutter higher than that you will have underexposed bars where the shutter is blocking part of the frame when the flash goes off.

........................................................................

So thats what that causes that. I got it quite a bit on the week-end.

bfjr

Is there something wrong with my Monitor ??
I think this shot is great
go right for the eyes and their crisp, skin a bit bright but he's young and it fits with the overall look.

What's wrong with me

DavidTO

bfjr wrote:

Is there something wrong with my Monitor ??
I think this shot is great
go right for the eyes and their crisp, skin a bit bright but he's young and it fits with the overall look.

What's wrong with me

That's heavy sharpening (Smart Sharpen) and the small size hides the problems. Trust me, it was very soft. And there were others that were much worse.

DavidTO

wxwax wrote:

David old boy, I reckon that's an excellent shot.

Thanks, Sid ol' chum. Woulda been, not it's just OK. Well, we'll see how it holds up in print...

ginger_55

I don't have a dime to my name right now, but I gotta get that sharpening thing ASAP.

What is it? Where do I get it?

If Andy says, "OOF", does it sharpen? I got a very clear bird, Osprey shot up, but there have been some I would have died to save. They were not that bad, but you people here "look" at everything, and all it takes is a bit of a soft photo in a set, and the whole set goes sour. That is MHO.

So, again, what is this miracle worker? Please?

Very good photo.

Smile, ginger

DavidTO

ginger_55 wrote:

I don't have a dime to my name right now, but I gotta get that sharpening thing ASAP.

What is it? Where do I get it?

If Andy says, "OOF", does it sharpen? I got a very clear bird, Osprey shot up, but there have been some I would have died to save. They were not that bad, but you people here "look" at everything, and all it takes is a bit of a soft photo in a set, and the whole set goes sour. That is MHO.

So, again, what is this miracle worker? Please?

Very good photo.

Smile, ginger

It's part of CS2.

MuskyDude

David, you can chaulk this one up to another one of those "I think it sucks" but others see something right away shots. In this case, to me it's the subjects eyes. Immediately your drawn into them, there's a definate quality to them that makes this a very effective shot. Maybe not great in yours, but effective in other's. Mitusense.


AJ

Netgarden

I agree! I wish my bad shots looked like that! Love the eyes and color too.
Thanks for the info.

MuskyDude wrote:

David, you can chaulk this one up to another one of those "I think it sucks" but others see something right away shots. In this case, to me it's the subjects eyes. Immediately your drawn into them, there's a definate quality to them that makes this a very effective shot. Maybe not great in yours, but effective in other's. Mitusense.


AJ

Angelo

DavidTO wrote:

I was shooting my cousin's daughter's (what does that make her to me?) birthday yesterday.

assuming you're speaking of your first cousin, the child is; your first cousin, once removed. That child and your children are second cousins.

Angelo

DavidTO wrote:

Here's an example of a shot that could have been great, but I flubbed it:

I don't know... I think it's a very nice shot!

Steve Cavigliano

ginger_55 wrote:

I don't have a dime to my name right now, but I gotta get that sharpening thing ASAP.

What is it? Where do I get it?

If Andy says, "OOF", does it sharpen? I got a very clear bird, Osprey shot up, but there have been some I would have died to save. They were not that bad, but you people here "look" at everything, and all it takes is a bit of a soft photo in a set, and the whole set goes sour. That is MHO.

So, again, what is this miracle worker? Please?

Very good photo.

Smile, ginger

Ginger,
There aren't any free lunches and there are no miracle working software programs. If a shot is soft, some 3rd party softwares can make it better. If the shot is OOF, it's OOF forever Don't waste your valuable $ thinking that there's software out there that will fix this problem. Also, as David mentions, these sharpening softwares also take a toll on the image. Shrunk down to small sizes it won't be as noticeable, but it won't look good at, say, an 8X10 print size.

Try downloading Focus Magic here You get 10 free saves, then you'll have to buy it if you want to keep it. Use it on some of your soft images and see if you like the results. Personally, I think most of these types of sw leave the image looking blocky and noisy. That's why they can look decent at small sizes, but awful for medium to large prints.

Steve