Attempting more "professional" looking photos

JulieLawsonPhotography

CC is always welcome. I did have trouble on this day with focus. I have a Nikon D40x and I put on my 55-200mm lens hoping that I would be able to shots of her from farther away since she's always running. I had it in priority. I focused on her face, but the pics I took earlier in the day look soft and the colors look muddy. On my computer it says that the color was uncalibrated. What does that mean? I couldn't find anything about it in the manual. Here is an example of what I'm talking about.



Here are some more from later that day. I ended up switching to the child settings and those turned out better. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
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Swartzy

Julie
I'm not familiar with the Nikon but the principles remain the same. In the second one it sounds like there is "mode" on your camera for children. Often the camera will up the shutter speed (because kids are active ). I suspect the camera switches its focusing system internally when using that mode as well.

When shooting moving subjects we have to change our settings for focus and lock. With Canon, we have something called AI Servo wich is the camera's internal computer system for tracking focus. Nikon has something similar, just called by a different name. This information would be in the manual.

On a lowly lit day the focus will become more difficult, especially if your lens is not a fast focusing (based on build quality and f/stop). I suspect your 55-200 is an f/4.5-f/5.6. Unless you are shooting with a f/2.8 on a cloudy day, you're going to have problems. A lens with a wider aperture (maximum) uses that for focusing regardless what aperture you are shooting with when the shutter is released.

Getting "more professional" shots of a child running around the yard and such is by itself difficult. Getting them in an area where your backgrounds are conducive to nice candids will help tremendously.