Images aren't sharp

KTBoom2006-E510 · June 2, 2008

I have an Olympus E-510 and was wondering if I am doing something wrong. My pictures are not looking as sharp as most on this forum... My husband keeps mentioning maybe its my camera, but I want to know what other possibilities there are. I try and try to get my pictures to look so sharp and so real looking, but aren't even close. Here's one from today

MarkW · June 2, 2008

I don't know about your other images but looking at the exif on the image you just posted I found a few things that may be the cause of your problem. In the exif data it shows your shutter speed was 1/45 and you had a focal length of 114mm. If you were hand holding your camera for this shot the shutter speed is too slow to avoid motion blur. A tripod would be needed or you must use a faster shutter speed. The general rule is to make sure your shutter speed is at least 1 over the focal length of the lens. For instance if you're zoom at 135mm on your lens, then your shutter speed must be atleast 1/135th. If your camera has crop factor then your shutter need to be even faster! A lot of crop factors are around 1.6x. So if you're zoomed at 135mm your shutter will then need to (1/135 x 1.6) or 1/216.

Bumping up your ISO will help you to get a faster shutter speed but you do sacrife a bit of quailty. I see you were already at 800 ISO. I try to keep below this if possible.

I also see you used flash for this shot. Flash will freeze and stop motion but if your shutter is too slow you can still get motion blur. On average when I'm working with flash I like to keep my shutter speed around 1/125 or 1/250 just to keep everything sharp and in focus.

It appears you shot this in normal mode as well. If you haven't tried it yet I would recommend learning to shoot in manual mode with flash. The flash can still be set to automatic but you'll have the freedom to control the shutter speed and aperture. This way the camera won't force you to shoot with lower shutter speeds.

Check your exif on your other pics to see if this is true on them as well. If all that checks out then start testing your lens for focus issues.

KTBoom2006-E510 · June 2, 2008

With this one, I am guessing my shutter speed is the problem. I used no flash and my ISO is at 100. I don't like my ISO very high, and I use manual mode 90% of the time. Today I used the Program mode to see if that would help with the sharpness. My question is, how do I get the picture bighter with the shutter speed faster? That is why I have it low, and to make it brighter I have to have the ISO up which I don't like.

MarkW · June 3, 2008

If you want to keep you shutter speed higher then you would have to lower your aperture. A lower aperture will allow to keep faster shutter speeds and also by opening up the lens you will get more shallow DOF. Ex. you start with a shutter speed of 1/60 and an aperture of f/8.0 If you increase the shutter to 1/125 to get the equivalent exposure you need f/5.6. The shutter has increased 1 stop and the aperture has decreased 1 stop. I hope this is making sense.

pathfinder · June 3, 2008

I believe the Mag factor on the Oly 4/3 cameras is 2.0

So the shutter speed needs to be even higher than suggested.

Out of doors you want to try to keep your shutter speed above 1/125th if possible.

KTBoom2006-E510 · June 3, 2008

pathfinder wrote:

I believe the Mag factor on the Oly 4/3 cameras is 2.0

So the shutter speed needs to be even higher than suggested.

Out of doors you want to try to keep your shutter speed above 1/125th if possible.

That is correct... Some of my pictures I took for a senior photo shoot were as high as 1/800 (don't know the exact), but it was very high b/c it was very bright... here is a picture from then

mercphoto · June 3, 2008

pathfinder wrote:

I believe the Mag factor on the Oly 4/3 cameras is 2.0. So the shutter speed needs to be even higher than suggested.

Actually, the crop factor does not influence the 1-over-focal-length rule.

KTBoom2006-E510 · June 3, 2008

MarkW wrote:

If you want to keep you shutter speed higher then you would have to lower your aperture. A lower aperture will allow to keep faster shutter speeds and also by opening up the lens you will get more shallow DOF. Ex. you start with a shutter speed of 1/60 and an aperture of f/8.0 If you increase the shutter to 1/125 to get the equivalent exposure you need f/5.6. The shutter has increased 1 stop and the aperture has decreased 1 stop. I hope this is making sense.

That does make sense. I have read up on stuff before I bought a camera, so I know what you are talking about. Thanks

What would cause my colors not to "pop" as someone had mentioned to me on this forum

Icebear · June 3, 2008

Even slight underexposure will cause a loss of contrast and saturation. Your photos will look flat. On the other hand, have a look at the first photo of the pretty girl you posted. Well exposed, shutter at 1/125, NICE boekeh at f4.5. See how sharp her eyes and eyebrows are? I think that's largely due to the lack of camera shake, evident when you were shooting at 1/45th.

pathfinder · June 3, 2008

mercphoto wrote:

Actually, the crop factor does not influence the 1-over-focal-length rule.

Bill, not trying to start an argument, I do understand the theory behind what you are saying. Just not sure that I buy it completely.

I know that is what is taught( that focal length based on Mag factor on crop cameras do not require faster shutter speeds), but that would suggest that one can handhold a 45mm lens on a point and shoot at 1/40th of a sec, and I assure you that I cannot do that even with the camera braced. A 45mm lens on a G9 is a long lens ( 210mm full frame equivalent ), and requires a faster shutter speed than 1/40th sec, even with IS.

On the Oly system, the 300mm f2.8 is a functional f2.8 600mm lens. Do you really believe you can hand hold that at 1/300th sec and have crisp images? Maybe you can but do you believe that just anybody can shoot a 300mm f2.8 Olympus 4/3 lens at 1/300th routinely and get sharp images?

KTBoom2006-E510 · June 3, 2008

Icebear wrote:

Even slight underexposure will cause a loss of contrast and saturation. Your photos will look flat. On the other hand, have a look at the first photo of the pretty girl you posted. Well exposed, shutter at 1/125, NICE boekeh at f4.5. See how sharp her eyes and eyebrows are? I think that's largely due to the lack of camera shake, evident when you were shooting at 1/45th.

So let me get this right, you are saying on the picture of her (close up), everything was right, right? And that I didn't shake the camera? The is my biggest concern, is if I am the one shaking and blurring things. And are you saying my pictures are flat b/c of the exposure?

KTBoom2006-E510 · June 3, 2008

How's this?

Icebear · June 3, 2008

KTBoom2006-E510 wrote:

So let me get this right, you are saying on the picture of her (close up), everything was right, right? And that I didn't shake the camera? The is my biggest concern, is if I am the one shaking and blurring things. And are you saying my pictures are flat b/c of the exposure?

What are you, a frigging lawyer?

You'll never get me to say "everything was right" because there's always room for improvement. What I was trying to point out, which you locked in on like a Patriot Missile, was that the higher your shutter speed, the less camera shake will be evident in your images. And yes, your exposure was better on that shot too. And on the shot of the little girl, you nailed it

.
There's nothing inherently wrong with a slow exposure, but if you're going to shoot at slower than 1/focal length, you'd be well served to use a tripod or other steadying "crutch.",

KTBoom2006-E510 · June 3, 2008

Icebear wrote:

What are you, a frigging lawyer?

You'll never get me to say "everything was right" because there's always room for improvement. What I was trying to point out, which you locked in on like a Patriot Missile, was that the higher your shutter speed, the less camera shake will be evident in your images. And yes, your exposure was better on that shot too. And on the shot of the little girl, you nailed it .
There's nothing inherently wrong with a slow exposure, but if you're going to shoot at slower than 1/focal length, you'd be well served to use a tripod or other steadying "crutch.",

I didn't mean it like that at all...... I just wanted to make sure I was reading right. Sorry :cry

Icebear · June 3, 2008

Nothing to be sorry about. I was just funnin' wichya.

KTBoom2006-E510 · June 3, 2008

Icebear wrote:

Nothing to be sorry about. I was just funnin' wichya.

Good lol

rutt · June 8, 2008

Part of what's going wrong here is a magenta cast in your shots. Time and again, when fleshtones are more magenta than yellow, people don't like it, but they aren't really sure what's wrong. Here is your final image with more yellow flesh:

I did this with an RGB curve layer and just pulled the blue curve a touch toward darkness in the area of her flesh.

If you want to learn more about it, smugmug has a great help page.

You can go further in adding an illusion of sharpness to this shot. I can see that it has already been sharpened quite a bit (perhaps by the camera?) But you can make this look a lot more believable with the Dan Margulis Portrait Technique:

KTBoom2006-E510 · June 10, 2008

rutt wrote:

Part of what's going wrong here is a magenta cast in your shots. Time and again, when fleshtones are more magenta than yellow, people don't like it, but they aren't really sure what's wrong. Here is your final image with more yellow flesh:

I did this with an RGB curve layer and just pulled the blue curve a touch toward darkness in the area of her flesh.

If you want to learn more about it, smugmug has a great help page.

You can go further in adding an illusion of sharpness to this shot. I can see that it has already been sharpened quite a bit (perhaps by the camera?) But you can make this look a lot more believable with the Dan Margulis Portrait Technique:

That all seems very complicated...

, would take me awhile to get it going. Unfortunately I don't not have Photoshop. My trial version ended and I do not have that kind of money to get a registration key.

, I would love to try this Dan Margulis Portrait Technique but can't until I get photoshop. I only have Lightroom and photoshop elements.

Images aren't sharp

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