Advise...please??

smiliestars

Hello all! Could someone please help me? I've seem so many photos that are sharp, crisp, and clean and I am so jealous! How do I get there?

Here are some of my photos (These are all unedited images):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2151590&id=25314312&l=35090f0afa

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2151586&id=25314312&l=e41cfb7185

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2148217&id=25314312&l=6d3d18eb7e

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2147459&id=25314312&l=a51fd19e87

This is the look I'm looking to achieve:
http://heatherdrive.blogspot.com/2009/09/workaholic.html

We have the same camera equipment but our results are night and day. Can anyone shed some light? (haha..sorry, I have to amuse myself!)

Nikolai

Just like in every trade: you read, you learn the gear and the principal issues of the trade, you practice, you acquire feedback - and you'll get better. There is no silver bullet.

NOTE: at early stage it's hard to get ANY feedback. Try to limit your questions to specifics. Not "how I get better", but "why is his left eye is out of focus, while his right eye is".

A man asked a camel: why is your neck curved?
The camel replied: what part of me isn't?

Qarik

please be more specific on what you want help on. A specific probelm photo of yours with EXIF data would be helpful. Also let us know what equipment you are shooting with.

Finally the shots you have are not bad at all.

T. Bombadil

I'm no expert, but I think the first thing I would do is avoid Facebook for showing photos. I think Facebook compresses images a great deal - not sure, but I know that I haven't seen great photos on it. You can host your photos somewhere else (lots of happy Smugmug users on this forum) and post a link on Facebook so your Facebook friends still get to see the photos.

Lack of sharpness can come from several problems. Camera movement, subject movement, incorrect focus, less-than-ideal processing, less-than-great lens, low-quality filter on the front of the lens, etc.

You said your photos were unedited. Were you getting RAW files from your camera, or JPG. If RAW, you'll need to process them some (sharpness, saturation, etc.). If JPG, you need to understand the controls your camera gives you over sharpness/saturation/etc. and tweak it to make it produce results you like.

JPG files from the camera have been processed according to the algorithm(s) built in to the camera. RAW files from the camera leave that processing for you to do on your computer. Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages (with some passionate views held by photographers about which is best).

Hello all! Could someone please help me? I've seem so many photos that are sharp, crisp, and clean and I am so jealous! How do I get there?

Here are some of my photos (These are all unedited images):

. . .

adbsgicom

What Nikolai said, but also you are viewing on FB. Your image is 42KB and one of the one's on Heather's site is 288KB, that's 7x the amount of data for the same sized image (actually her's is a bit smaller), so let's say 8x the amount of resolution/precision. Now, if you have some higher resolution images that are still fuzzy, post one or two and help will begin flowing your way.

For example, this image is razor sharp around the eyes at full resolution, and if I just do a poor jpg conversion to something about 55KB:

20091023-268.jpg

Looks pretty soft. See?

adbsgicom

adbsgicom wrote:

What Nikolai said, but also you are viewing on FB. Your image is 42KB and one of the one's on Heather's site is 288KB, that's 7x the amount of data for the same sized image (actually her's is a bit smaller), so let's say 8x the amount of resolution/precision. Now, if you have some higher resolution images that are still fuzzy, post one or two and help will begin flowing your way.

For example, this image is razor sharp around the eyes at full resolution, and if I just do a poor jpg conversion to something about 55KB:

20091023-268.jpg

Looks pretty soft. See?

The front eye at 1:1

20091023-268-3.jpg

smiliestars

Ok, I see what you guys mean about FB now. I posted this photo on Flickr and it is quite different! I guess looking at it here makes the photo look a little better but still not what I am wanting. This was shot in JPEG. I use a Body: Canon Rebel XTi
Lens: 24-70 f2.8L USM with a Canon UV filter on it
ISO:200
f:2.8
shutter: 1/200
focal length: 68mm
No flash used, shot in manual mode.

I think the focus on her eye is not bad, but the rest of her face seems to be out of focus to me. And I guess it's the way she is leaning, one of her eyes is more focused than the other?? I guess I could use a higher f stop but then that would put other things into focus as well. Also, would it be that this photo would print dark? I mean, on screen it looks to be a good amount of light...right?


Also, can anyone tell me, the photo posted on Heather's page, is that a post edit photo?

Does anyone have any resource suggestions as to how to improve my skills both in taking the actual photo and editing it? I've search the web but some of the sites don't seem to be of much use.

adbsgicom

At f/2.8 you don't have much depth of field, I'm guessing you were only 4' or so away, so you will only have a fraction of an inch of distance before and after the focus point that is in focus.

Qarik

the 24-70mm is known to be soft wide open. Furthermore at f.28 the DOF at 70mm is very shallow..no need to shoot at that aperture...try f4 or so.

Scott_Quier

- it's all about aperture and the appropriate use thereof

Shoot RAW - soooo much more lattitude for exposure and color adjustments then using a camera produced JPG as your editing starting point.

<* flame suit on *>
Oh, and get rid of the UV filter. Opinions differ on this, but think about it this way. You are shooting through a $1,400 hunk of glass and you put a $50 piece of window glass in the optical path. How smart is that?

As for the WB - hmmmm need some work there. Investigate the proper use of a gray and/or exposure calibration target.

adbsgicom

As to your question on brightness, you need to calibrate your monitor to get proper color and luminance. Out of the box, there is a very good chance that your monitor is too bright, and thus your images print too dark. I use a Spyder3 on my monitors, and it works very well.

Hackbone

Are you on a tripod.....first thing I would try.