I need help with out of focus images

W

wblanchard

Guest
I need help with my shooting skills. I'm a Canon EOS 3 SLR person. I now shoot with some rangefinders here and there, and most recently my leica digilux 2. the image below shows the picture results that i always seem to get with a rangefinder camera. the thing i focus on (the cat) is sharp...but other things are not. With my SLR all I needed to do was lock on the cat, recompose, and everything is in focus. I try this with the digilux 2 and i still get the same results as before..some out of focus parts.

Can someone help me figure this out? I had this camera mounted on my tripod and used the bounce flash function. I'm afraid to take the camera out street shooting because i may get the same results. is their a hyperfocal distance setting i could use to shoot and have images sharp all the time from 2 ft onward?

Thanks!
Bill
 
What was the exposure information for the shot? It looks, to me, like the lens was wide open for low light and had little DOF as a result.

William
 
Bill:

At close distances and wide apertures, you will have much less DOF than at farther distances. For example, the chart I use says that with a 50mm lens focused at 5 feet and set at f 2.8, the acceptable DOF will be from 4' 10" to 5' 3". That's only 5 inches from front to back.

What lens were you using, and what were the f numbers and distances?

-Paul
 
William is dead on, Bill! Check out your index information on the shot. You have a very wide aperture on the lens and that gives you this shallow depth of field. If you had focused on the guy's eyes this would have been a wonderful shot! :)

I think you need to check out your camera manual and figure out how to get the lens aperture smaller so that most of the subject matter in your pictures will be in focus. :)
 
ISO 100 1/60th of a second. 90mm. I had the camera in "P" mode with bounce flash. I'm wondering if it's the autofocus thats causing the problems. maybe switch to manual focus?
 
peter_n said:
William is dead on, Bill! Check out your index information on the shot. You have a very wide aperture on the lens and that gives you this shallow depth of field. If you had focused on the guy's eyes this would have been a wonderful shot! :)

I think you need to check out your camera manual and figure out how to get the lens aperture smaller so that most of the subject matter in your pictures will be in focus. :)
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I'm thinking of shooting in "A" priority mode and have athe aperture set to f11. I feel like a total idiot.
 
I think I'd try to see how well the sensor works at ISO 400. There will doubtless be more noise, but perhaps it'll be an acceptable trade off for the greater DOF?

William
 
Bill, unless the cat is the most important part of your picture, I'd like to suggest that you use the spot of light in the young lady's eye (it's called a "catch-light") to focus. Considering that the cat's face is hidden, I think the woman's face is the most important feature of the picture.

If you need both the eyes and the cat to be reasonably sharp, focus on each in turn, noting the distance to each. Then select an f-stop that covers both distances, set focus to the point where both are included and shoot using the correct shutter speed.

Walker
 
I figured it out...
I was too close to the subject with the wide lens opening. I tried again about 7 ft away with the 50mm at f/5.6 at 1/60th of a second..and bounce flash at iso 400....everything came out sharp from front to back. Not quite exposed 100% properly, but it confirmed my thoughts. Thanks again everyone. Honestly, i like the film grain look of the photos at jpeg high/iso 400. I wonder how a matte print from my epson 2200 will look with one printed out?
 
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Bill, you might want to go up to f8 or f11 if you want more DoF when in close range. With a tripod the longer shutter speed (1/30, 1/15) wouldn't be a problem. Just experiment a bit and you'll soon find out how deep the DoF is with the subject at different distances.
 
wblanchard said:
I figured it out...
I was too close to the subject with the wide lens opening. I tried again about 7 ft away with the 50mm at f/5.6 at 1/60th of a second..and bounce flash at iso 400....everything came out sharp from front to back. Not quite exposed 100% properly, but it confirmed my thoughts. Thanks again everyone.
Click to expand...
Bill many people here are into isolating the main subject rather than using a large DOF so we tend to use larger apertures. But if you do close down further as Remy suggests remember that if you go as far as f16 or f22 you often pay a penalty in terms of lens performance.

Glad the problem is fixed! :)
 
I had this problem with my Nikon N70 with Program Mode Flash. It seems that they open up the aperture as much as it goes to save battery power and slow the shutter speed down for the natural lighting to have an effect; ie short flash duration. I went over to manual mode to get the fast sync speed and smaller lens opening.
 
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