help with portrait blurs please

Lilley Photography

I'm a beginner photographer. I started taking my daughter's Senior pictures and the next thing I know, I'm doing lots of photoshoots and staying busy... which I'm truly greatful for.

I do have a concern. (Mainly because I've been asked to take twirling recital pictures soon... group shots) The problem that I have is that when I take pictures of things in front of something... things blur. I've tried changing my settings to different things but...... I'm at a lost. Otherwise, my pictures are turning out really good.

This link is to some of the pictures that show my concern. The little boy is clear but his hand and toy cars are blurry. I have this problem occasionally.

http://lilleyphotography.smugmug.com/gallery/2643740#139772788

These were taken on manuel 1/125 2.8 400 ISO with a portrait lens. At first I was taking them on AV instead of manuel but that didn't seem to work good. It was once suggested to put it on A-DEP but they seem really blurry that way.

Help appreciated,

Elaine

I'm sure others can give a more complete answer, but using an aperture of 2.8 means you have a very shallow depth of focus. You focused on his face, so that plane is in focus...anything much in front of his face or behind his face will be blurred. Perhaps try f/5.6 or smaller?

Elaine

JimFuglestad

Lilley,

This isn't "blur" per se... the cars and hands are just out of the depth of field (dof).

When shooting at 2.8 your dof will be quite shallow. If you shot this at f8 it all would have been in focus.

Now... I am definitely not saying I recommend shooting this at f8, only trying to explain the reasons behind the problem you're having.

Personally, I shoot with lenses at 1.4 and 1.8 very often. It can help isolate your subject or feature.

Jim

bratsscrappy

DOF is definitely the problem. If you look at the DOF calculator
http://www.dofmaster.com/custom.html you will see how to determine your DOF for a given apeture. Just remember, fi you want stop action you want the fastest shutter speed that will fit with your apeture to "freeze" the action. But a little blur goes a long ways towards capturing the fact that it is in motion. I suggest get a subject in similar lighting to what you will have to work with and start playing.

Mike02

Lilley Photography wrote:

I'm a beginner photographer...

These were taken on manual 1/125 2.8 400 ISO with a portrait lens.

Help is appreciated.

I would suggest switching to Av mode, setting ISO to around 800-1600, and then using as high as shutter speed as you can with an aperture of 5.6-7.1, and that should solve your DoF problem :P.

GREAPER

I think these were shot using two studio strobes. Unless your strobes are all tied via TTL to your camera, Av is probably not the way to go (your camera will base it's settings on ambient light, not the strobes). I use manual in the studio. Be careful not to use shutter speeds higher than the flash sync speed of your camer or you will end up with a black bar covering portions of your image.

If you want the hands and cars sharper you will need to use a deeper DOF. If you still want the backdrop out of focus, you may need to move the subject farther away from the backdrop.

goofry

You said you had to shoot twirling recital pictures - group shots, I am assuming these will not be actions shots. If this is the case, everything that has been posted before will certainly work for you. Lower the shutter speed and increase the apperature to create a focal plane large enough to keep the entire subject in focus. Also boost the ISO to the highest acceptible on your camera.

A couple of other things to consider, although you may already know this:
I would suggest backing up a little extra and using a longer lens. This will help to compress the group and not make the kids in the middle look larger than the kids on the outside.
I would also suggest using a tripod. I know shooting handheld at say 1/100 at 50mm will usually produce good results, but nothing beats a dead still camera.
Most likely, the ambient lighting is not going to help you very much. Use a bounce flash or bring your stobes.

If you are shooting action shots, all of this is going to be a different story of course.

I hope this helps.