Aiming high

rutt · August 9, 2005

This is my most common mistake. Maybe it's becaue I'm somewhat tall (6')? But it even happnes when I'm sitting or squating. Does anyone else have problem? Has anyone overcome it?

I have tons of examples, but here is a most recent one. (and this is after I cropped quite a bit of top off.)

Angelo · August 9, 2005

Do you know how to get to Carnegie Hall?

rutt · August 9, 2005

Angelo wrote:

Do you know how to get to Carnegie Hall?

I was hoping for something with a little more content. Practice, practice is fine advce, but if that's all your violin teacher told you, you'd go looing for a new one.

Angelo · August 9, 2005

rutt wrote:

I was hoping for something with a little more content. Practice, practice is fine advce, but if that's all your violin teacher told you, you'd go looing for a new one.

Just playing with ya Rutt. I wish I had more substantive advice. Does this problem usually prove a surprise? Meaning, when you're framing the shots do you believe you have not cut off their feet and then find out you did in post?

rutt · August 9, 2005

Angelo wrote:

Just playing with ya Rutt. I wish I had more substantive advice. Does this problem usually prove a surprise? Meaning, when you're framing the shots do you believe you have not cut off their feet and then find out you did in post?

exactly

Angelo · August 9, 2005

rutt wrote:

exactly

ahhhh, I've heard of this. This is a lens issue. I hope someone with much more experience than I comes in to help. Good luck.

Higgmeister · August 9, 2005

Hi Rutt,
I find that I do it on a regular basis. When I get caught up in the moment, the feet are the first to go. Not intentionally and there is usually too much room over the head. I just need to pay attention more, but that's easier said than done. If you want to find out if it's your lens or your eyes, shoot a scene and check the camera framing. For me, it's my eyes as my camera does a fair job at framing.

One for the no-feet group,
Chris

Angelo · August 9, 2005

Higgmeister wrote:

I find that I do it on a regular basis. When I get caught up in the moment, the feet are the first to go. Not intentionally and there is usually too much room over the head. I just need to pay attention more, but that's easier said than done. If you want to find out if it's your lens or your eyes, shoot a scene and check the camera framing. For me, it's my eyes as my camera does a fair job at framing.

One for the no-feet group,
Chris

Chris - Rutt indicated that he's framing the shots OK; it's only after he DLs them that he notices the cut-off.

Higgmeister · August 9, 2005

Angelo wrote:

Chris - Rutt indicated that he's framing the shots OK; it's only after he DLs them that he notices the cut-off.

Thanks for the clarification as I misunderstood. Wonder if a hardware fix to my eyeballs would help me any:D?

Thanks Angelo,
Chris

rutt · August 9, 2005

Higgmeister wrote:

Thanks for the clarification as I misunderstood. Wonder if a hardware fix to my eyeballs would help me any:D?

Thanks Angelo,
Chris

That's not really right. I never suspected the camera, but I guess I'll check it out. I think it has always happened to me with all cameras and it doesn't matter whether I hold the camera in portrait or landscape orientation. So I think it's more like Higgmeister's problem.

I guess Angelo and I had a little failure to communicate.

ginger_55 · August 9, 2005

Yes, it is NOT a lens issue, it is a "human error" issue. (Isn't that the terminology?)

I certainly have done it. And I do other things, too. I blur things that I am excited about. I pull shots too fast: looks like shake.

Usually I am cognizant now when I am doing it, if I am thinking. I had a devil of a time getting a bird in the camera yesterday. Bird is just standing there, I am backing up, some are in, some are not.

I clip the bird's wings, and that has lots of reasons, it might be the camera, meaning I have set the camera wrong, or the lens, same thing. If it can be done, I have done it. Feet are the first to go, as someone said, we don't usually look at feet. I am better now than I used to be, so Rutt, can't say I overcame it, but I am better.

It might be the lens' fault, being that it might not be aimed right. (With great difficulty, I will forego the laugh thingy.)

I don't take a lot of people usually, but will this weekend. I can pull up my examples of that problem then. But when I was shooting bill w the umbrella yesterday, I was hyper alert, made many other errors, but that was not one of them. That comes with practice. And after having cut the feet off so many times that one becomes quite tuned into everything in the photo, backgrounds, I learned that, too, in the 70s. However, with excitement, we become as idiots, or I do.

ginger

Andy · August 9, 2005

try shooting with wider lenses, you'll see that cut-off feet etc become less of an issue. there's a tendency today imo to over-zoom with long glass. try 50mm or less, and zoom with your feet

rutt · August 9, 2005

andy wrote:

try shooting with wider lenses, you'll see that cut-off feet etc become less of an issue. there's a tendency today imo to over-zoom with long glass. try 50mm or less, and zoom with your feet

This is good advice, but I don't think I need a long lens to make this mistake. I have to concentrate very hard not to do it with even my 10-22 UWA at 10mm. Maybe it has to do with that darn center focus point, which I do use a lot. (Boring details about the Canon 1D family of cameras omitted....)

Over the last year, I've gotten to be better with wide angle, but sometimes it still isn't what I want. The picture I posted was shot with my 24-70 f2.8L. I did crop with my feet, but also with the lens. Then in post, I cropped the sky in order to balance the tight composition of the (cut off) feet. So it looks a little tighter than it really was.

Here is the next best one in the series (no post), before I zoomed in:

I guess I'd take the cur off feet to get the expression on the boy's face in this particular case.

ginger_55 · August 9, 2005

Yes, your other photo was better, and we don't care about the feet. Actually you can get away with it a lot.

OK, you want honesty, remember I don't always, just sometimes. And tempered, too. Honesty that I can do something about.

However, it used to make me feel nuts when you cut kids off at the knees in sports, they looked like amputees, not that the expressions were not good, not that everyone did not say that they were the best shots ever.

Cutting people off at the toes is a major improvement that you can live with.

The expression is also worth a few toes. (Try not to get them at the knees, though)

Oh, and IMO, there are better uses for a wide lens, than the fishing shot. I tend to want the pole in my shots, too. I guess you taught me that people can "imagine" the pole, don't need it. You have too much space all over.

want to shoot me yet?

g

XO-Studios · August 9, 2005

King of cut off feet
I think some of the posters above have pointed it out correctly. As th photographer you get so caught in the moment, that some details are the first to be cut off. Myself being the king of cutt off feet, but I am getting better, even though not all my pictures show it. My biggest thing, especially now with digital SLOW DOWN. Also, look beyond what I am naturally attracted to and or let my focus fall on!!! And this is not meant to be offensive or chauvinistic, but:

I have never accidentally cropped:
- eyes
- female form (think curves)

I have accidentally cropped:
- crown of head
- hand
- feet

All these are easy avoided by slowing down, and reflect on the picture before taking the picture.

XO,

ps to Andy, I do 80% of all my portrait shoots with my Nikkor 50mm/1.8, the other 20% with an 80-200/2.8 so I do ample zooming by feet

ginger_55 · August 9, 2005

I'm back, sorry. I have a question. Those focus points, and I have read a lot, searches and just lately re whether to use all the points, or just one.

I am more messed up on that than ever.

What do you all do? Did anyone understand everything posted on it lately, so it was of use?

ginger

George · August 9, 2005

Two thoughts:

I also do this all the time, although more often at the top. I agree with the comments above about slowing down. By slowing down you might miss some moments, but you're more likely to make the moments you do catch great. I find I do this more when I haven't picked up the camera in a few weeks, and less when I've been photographing frequently. There can be a lot of things to think about when trying to get a good photo, and it's easy to get locked in on one of them.

Which brings me to my second thought -- I think one of the reasons this happens is because your eye is naturally attracted to the highlight of the scene, and you're tuning out the rest of the photo. Which makes me think the eye is on to something and the framing can be improved. I'd suggest cutting off more than the feet and cropping this photo from the left and from the bottom to focus on the faces. Leave just enough of the bodies and the rod so you can tell what's happening. The beauty of this picture is not in the feet or the sand, it's in the great expression you've captured.

tmlphoto · August 9, 2005

rutt wrote:

That's not really right. I never suspected the camera, but I guess I'll check it out. I think it has always happened to me with all cameras and it doesn't matter whether I hold the camera in portrait or landscape orientation. So I think it's more like Higgmeister's problem.

I guess Angelo and I had a little failure to communicate.

I have had this problem as well at times. Try taking pictures of moving horses with riders sometime. You have to really force yourself to "look around" the whole frame, just as you must do to avoid distracting backgrounds, trees growing out of head etc. I find that I have to constantly remind myself to try and slow down and really study the whole frame and not just concentrate on the subject or the subjects face. Taking pictures of dancers, especially ballet dancers will help train you in this regard. Also a related issue is leaving enough space around a portrait that it can be successfully cropped to an 8x10. I think it is helpful to error on the side of a little more breathing room around the subject. One can always crop later, I am not ashamed to say.

ginger_55 · August 9, 2005

tmlphoto wrote:

I have had this problem as well at times. Try taking pictures of moving horses with riders sometime. You have to really force yourself to "look around" the whole frame, just as you must do to avoid distracting backgrounds, trees growing out of head etc. I find that I have to constantly remind myself to try and slow down and really study the whole frame and not just concentrate on the subject or the subjects face. Taking pictures of dancers, especially ballet dancers will help train you in this regard. Also a related issue is leaving enough space around a portrait that it can be successfully cropped to an 8x10. I think it is helpful to error on the side of a little more breathing room around the subject. One can always crop later, I am not ashamed to say.

Thomas, my baptism people stand still, but I sometimes think they put that candle there just to drive me nuts.............I usually have to physically move the people over. I tell them that they need to move so that the candle isn't growing out of their heads, huh! Go two feet, they move one.

My husband is worse.

Speaking of ballet and horses, that sounds like good practice for birds. It took me a long time in the 70s to see the background. I can see better through a lens than I can in real life. And that is not because it is telephoto, it is from being burned so much in the 70s. There was more written then about checking the background, etc, then, too.

I used the preview button all the time back then, too. I can be rudely shocked now when instead of bokeh, I get "stuff" all over.

In real life I am reading lips, so it is very face oriented, through the lens I don't care what they are saying, so it is still them and the background. But I can mess up anyway. All this talk made me think to work up my baptism shots from this weekend, between the blinkers, the uncooporative kids, etc. I am usually glad I shoot so many frames.

(I was thinking about Rutt, his shot, me and my shots, how bad I can mess up when I am nervous, then I was thinking how I would feel in a time constraint taking a photo of the president of the USA.)

And I was also glad for the room I left, then I cropped them tight. I thought the person in charge would like that. I also removed a double chin. People hate it when their double chin shows.

So, please, do you have it on one point, or what? On the AF?

ginger (OK, I won't say any more.)

tmlphoto · August 9, 2005

ginger_55 wrote:

Thomas, my baptism people stand still, but I sometimes think they put that candle there just to drive me nuts.............I usually have to physically move the people over. I tell them that they need to move so that the candle isn't growing out of their heads, huh! Go two feet, they move one.

My husband is worse.

Speaking of ballet and horses, that sounds like good practice for birds. It took me a long time in the 70s to see the background. I can see better through a lens than I can in real life. And that is not because it is telephoto, it is from being burned so much in the 70s. There was more written then about checking the background, etc, then, too.

I used the preview button all the time back then, too. I can be rudely shocked now when instead of bokeh, I get "stuff" all over.

In real life I am reading lips, so it is very face oriented, through the lens I don't care what they are saying, so it is still them and the background. But I can mess up anyway. All this talk made me think to work up my baptism shots from this weekend, between the blinkers, the uncooporative kids, etc. I am usually glad I shoot so many frames.

(I was thinking about Rutt, his shot, me and my shots, how bad I can mess up when I am nervous, then I was thinking how I would feel in a time constraint taking a photo of the president of the USA.)

And I was also glad for the room I left, then I cropped them tight. I thought the person in charge would like that. I also removed a double chin. People hate it when their double chin shows.

So, please, do you have it on one point, or what? On the AF?

ginger (OK, I won't say any more.)

Ginger I usually use the center AF point & focus and recompose OR I adjust the AF point to the left or right at the 1/3 point if I am close to the subject.

tmlphoto · August 9, 2005

George wrote:

I'd suggest cutting off more than the feet and cropping this photo from the left and from the bottom to focus on the faces. Leave just enough of the bodies and the rod so you can tell what's happening. The beauty of this picture is not in the feet or the sand, it's in the great expression you've captured.

I agree with George.

pathfinder · August 10, 2005

tmlphoto wrote:

Ginger I usually use the center AF point & focus and recompose OR I adjust the AF point to the left or right at the 1/3 point if I am close to the subject.

Thomas - I KNOW that you know that focus-recompose - is precisely what Canon recommends against if shooting within 15-20 feet or less.

:

Focus with center point - recompose - has automatic - built in focus errors due to the geometry involved. Using the appropriate AF point is MORE accurate. Focus - recompose works frequently because of some DOF slop with smaller aperatures. It won't work very well at wide aperatures like f1.4 or f2.0.
Canon had a discussion of this in their Digital Learning Center, but I can't find it there any longer. I remember Waxy and I discussing this then. Waxy and I both said we use Focus -Recompose, but iIdo have shots that were not as sharp due to this also. I did this frequently with the 10D, which did not focus terribly well with the peripheral AF points. The newer Canon cameras are much better with the peripheral AF points. At distances greater than 25 feet, the effect is minimal.

As for rutt's phrase "Aiming High" - I think this is partly due to the way the human visual system works. We direct our attention to the center of interest, and really don't see much of anything that we are not expressly looking at. It requires conscious effort to look away from what we are invested in visually, and to inspect the borders of the frame for telephone poles growing out of heads, cut off feet, etc. This inspection of the periphery is not a passive act, but must be commanded by the photographer's training or workflow. Do not press the shutter, until you have looked around.

That is one of the real virtues of shooting with a tripod - if gives you the ability to look around and inspect the peripheral frame more than once before you press the shutter. Admittedly, journalistic photography does not usually lend itself to tripod shooting, but the inpsection and conscious effort at inspecting all of the frame is the same. At least that is how I try to do it, but like everyone else, we get caught up in the moment, and forget some times. I have lots of butterflies with a wing extending beyond the frame from yesterday. Focusing closely, handheld, with a macro, I think, sets me up to concentrate on the center of interest and forget to check the edges in the heat of shooting a moving, fluttering target.

tmlphoto · August 10, 2005

Path, I really do try to only use focus & recompose at a reasonable distance. I have been shooting so much macro lately that I don't even focus the lens any more I just rock back & forth , back & forth.(another skill a by itself).

pathfinder · August 10, 2005

tmlphoto wrote:

Path, I really do try to only use focus & recompose at a reasonable distance. I have been shooting so much macro lately that I don't even focus the lens any more I just rock back & forth , back & forth.(another skill a by itself).

That's why I said "I KNOW you know that ............"

tmlphoto · August 10, 2005

pathfinder wrote:

That's why I said "I KNOW you know that ............"

nod

dave_bass5 · August 16, 2005

I have the same problem. that and tilting the camera slightly down and to the left.
One thing i do now is aim and focus on throats reather than heads of people. seems to help with the shooting high bit most of the time.
Coming from P&S and using the screen on them i find the viewfinder a bit strange to use on my 350d (but getting used to it all the time).

Dave.

Aiming high

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