Pixtus - Photography Forum, Photographers, Photo Tips

AutumnEdragonfly · **Little Model -** 08-14-2011, 09:00 PM

Critique:

Here is a photograph I took this afternoon of my fiance's daughter. Again it was on Auto Focus. Any comments welcomed. Tell me what you think. I am a newbie and want to learn all I can.

KenJulio · 08-14-2011, 10:00 PM

Christine, moving this to the appropriate section.

Also, when submitting photos for critique, they belong under the Showcase section.

AutumnEdragonfly · 08-14-2011, 10:04 PM

Sorry about that... Im new to the forum and still learning my way around. This is also the first forum I have been a member of.

KenJulio · 08-14-2011, 10:14 PM

No worries! Welcome and hope to see more!

IMO, it appears the image is soft, meaning it's not sharp. You'll hear this alot in regards to portraits if the eye(s) aren't sharp, it's not going to be acceptable.

Another note, the man and the pole in the background are distracting, mainly the man. You dont want to have something poking/growing out of someone's head. :)

AutumnEdragonfly · 08-14-2011, 10:17 PM

How do you make the eye(s) sharp?

danchez · 08-14-2011, 11:14 PM

you might also resize the image before you post it. Typically 800 pixels for the longest side does the trick.

SilverShooter · 08-15-2011, 08:28 AM

Christine

Based on your comments, I'm assuming that your new to serious photography as well as this forum. If not, please forgive the following entry level suggestions.

There are several things that can cause blurry images. You or your subject can move, and your focus could be off just a bit. As the previous poster suggests, post processing can impact your sharpness as well. (eg. Did you crop this image much? That would impact sharpness.) Save your image at highest resolution in the camera, you'll get sharper images. Yet another element of sharpness comes from the quality of your equipment. If your shooting a point and shoot, it's likely that your images won't be as sharp as if you're using the high end Canon glass. Lesser zoom lenses aren't as sharp as the better ones, and so on. If you're new to this sort of forum and want help, I'd suggest that you post all the info you have on the image. We need to know the shutter speed you picked to help on the motion issue. It would be useful to know the aperture you picked to see if you had enough depth of field to present the correct level of focus in the subjects face.

In general, your shutter speed should be at least 1/focal length of your lens, so 1/250 for a 250 mm lense, and so on. A tripod helps a bunch if you have time to set one up. Kids are always in motion so you probably ought to use a fast enough shutter speed to stop that motion too. That would be 1/250 or more even if you are using a shorter focal length lens.

The aperture is important because it will determine how much of the subject can be in focus from front to back. You were very close to this subject and it looks a bit like the focal plane of the image is in front of the childs face. Take a close look at the fabric on her left shoulder. Notice how the fabric is out of focus on her right shoulder. That's what depth of field is about. The larger the f stop number, the more depth of field you have. No matter how much depth of field you have, the eyes are usually the best objects to have in the center of that depth of field in portraiture. Cameras can be tricked when in autofocus and may pick some other spot to focus. If you have time, you should override the auto feature and chose the eyes to manually focus. In fast action, the camera will probably do better than you can.

FWIW, the shot you posted has captured a wonderful expression, and the colors are very pleasing. Given that the background sky is totally overexposed, your camera did a bang up job of picking a proper exposure to get the face so correctly captured.

AutumnEdragonfly · 08-15-2011, 02:24 PM

Yes I am new to the forum as well as photopgrapgphy. Want to do more than just oridinary snap shots. I am learning all the terms and what they mean. The camera I used was a Canon Rebel Eos. Its my first REAL camera. I am not sure as to what the shutter speed was or what the apeture was either. I also did not crop the picture at all.

I actually just got the camera last week, so also learning about all the controls and functions it has. So I am a true newbie beginner.

Thank you for your suggestions and explainations. Some of the stuff you talked about im going to have to look up what it all means. Im learning and I dont expect to get it all over night or even in a week. I know good photography takes time to perfect. I really do appreciate alk the help you and others give and can give to help a baby newbie like me.

SilverShooter · 08-15-2011, 05:21 PM

Christine

Your camera can take sharper images than the one you posted. The files that you downloaded off your camera contains the exposure data I mentioned. You should be able find that data in any number of post processing programs. I admit to no knowledge of Canon software, but whatever you used to resize the image for posting would likely be able to display the exposure data from a file called an EXIF file (which is attached to your jpg file). The file contains the date, time and loads of other data about your shot. Some more advanced programs can even tell you which autofocus sensor the camera chose for your shot.

One of the best things for a new photographer to do, is invest a few dollars in a photography class. Consider the online classes. I know Nikon has a class for beginners that is held in various places all over the US. Maybe Canon does this as well. There may be a local camera club that would love to have you as a member. When I was in Houston, one of the active clubs was Bay Area Photo Club. We had programs for newbies, including field trips where we had more advanced members work with folks like yourself.

There's too much to learn to just stumble along. And it's too much fun learning with a group to miss that opportunity. So before anyone talks you into expensive new lenses, or any other gear, consider kick starting your photography experience with professional lessons. They are a lot cheaper than the photo gear and will do a lot more for your shots!!