Grrrrrrr.....

[Wes]

I was working with a senior yesterday and could not take a sharp picture to save my life!! I'm still not sure what was wrong. My camera settings were pretty much the same that I always use for portraiture, but everything about this image just screams SOFT! This is straight out of the camera with absolutely no editing beyond resizing. I was shooting my D3 with the 70-200, 1/160 at f/3.2 (going for extremely shallow DOF - like I've done a million times before) and it just didn't work this time.

[humminboid]

Maybe it is just my senior (not high school) eyes, but, it looks fine to me. The eyes seem to be in sharp focus, and that is rule #1. Next time, just to be sure, a little more DOF might work. Her face is lovely, and your exposure looks to be right on. Whatever problem you are seeing, I'm not. You did good! I bet she loves the photo.

[cooltouch]

I'm with Humminboid. Technically, it's a good photo. Good lighting, good pose, subject is in focus (especially the eyes). I wouldn't be overly concerned just because the bg is not bokeh'd to the max. She's not gonna mind.

All that aside, though, I too would be wondering why there wasn't more of a blurred background at f/3.2. The only possibility I can think of is that you might have been shooting at closer to 70mm, rather than 200mm, and that this might have had some effect.

Best,
Michael

[Gama Fotos]

Originally Posted by Wes

I was shooting my D3 with the 70-200, 1/160 at f/3.2 (going for extremely shallow DOF - like I've done a million times before) and it just didn't work this time.

You answer your own question without realizing it. You threw out numbers but those numbers are very important to have control over.

These stuff are basic photography 101 reading material which I recommend that you hit the books again. (Don't take this personally, I pretty much tell this to everyone anyway!) But I will give you the number one reason why your photo came out soft.

Shooting at 1/160 handheld with a 70-200mm lens is just asking for trouble. I could shoot at f/1.2 or 3.2 but the moment the exposure reading dips below the length of my lens I already I'm going to get soft images because the exposure isn't fast enough to counteract the vibrations and movements of holding the camera.

If I shoot with my 50mm lens and I'm seeing 1/30 I expect to see soft out-of-focus images because the shutter isn't fast enough to capture the image without vibration causing a problem. Once it's faster than the length of that 50mm (ie 1/50 and higher) I won't have much of a vibration problem. If I'm shooting at 1/1000 it's a non issue by now as the shutter is so fast.

Back to your lens, try to shoot at 1/200 or higher. Anything below that with your 200mm lens is impossible. (unless you're on a tripod, and don't tell me about your VR thing...you weren't shooting in a damp dark wedding chapel.. .)

Hope that helps.

[The Philos]

I agree with Abreum, and with the 200mm*1.5 crop you should be shooting at 1/300th to be absolutely certain of the elimination of vibration. I think the "rule" 1/EFL is better than 1/FL to err on the side of safe.

[CaptainTom]

Here's a recent thread about camera shake.
I'm not sure I buy into it completely, but it may have some validity.

[humminboid]

Soooo...maybe "something is better than nothing" is not really correct, tripodwise. Hmmmmm... definitely something to take into consideration.

Maybe the old guard who did less scietific tests were onto something.

Their rules of thumb: Shutter speed at or higer than your longest focal length, and on a tripod, if you don't have mirror lock-up, use the self-timer delay to let mirror vibrations fade before the exposure. Definitely something to think about.