Blurring and inconsistent photos

[motlive]

Hi all, I just got back from a short trip to Pisa, and to my horror nearly all my photos didnt turn out most are blurry, underexposed, over exposed. I have an idea that it might be due to camera shake, as I push the camera a little to far I think.

I always shoot in manual mode and adjust either aperture or shutter to get a correct exposure, I very rarely touch ISO speed and leave it at 100.

Ill put some pictures up shortly to show the problem, but my main fear is that pushing up to 1600 ISO will result in a very grainy picture, should I be so scared of touching the ISO?

so gutted that pictures didnt turn out

Thanks in advance for any help and advice.

[motlive]

Here are 2 that I am not happy with, they look really soft to me..

Camera Model Name
          Canon EOS 350D DIGITAL
Firmware
          Firmware 1.0.3
Shooting Date/Time
          25/10/2008 09:54:34
Tv(Shutter Speed)
          1/3200Sec.
Av(Aperture Value)
          F2.8
Metering Modes
          Evaluative metering
Exposure Compensation
          0
ISO Speed
          100
Lens
          24-70mm
Focal Length
          46.0 mm
Image size
          3456 x 2304
Image Quality
          RAW
Flash
          Off
White Balance
          Auto
AF mode
          AI focus AF
Picture Style
          -
Parameters
          Tone Curve :    -
          Sharpness level :    -
          Pattern Sharpness :    -
          Contrast :    1
          Sharpness :    1
          Color saturation :    1
          Color tone :    0
          Long exposure noise reduction :    -
          High ISO speed noise reduction :    -
          Highlight tone priority :    -
Color matrix
          -
Color Space
          sRGB
File Size
          6848 KB
Dust Delete Data
          No
Drive Mode
          Single-frame shooting

File name
          IMG_9929.CR2
Camera Model Name
          Canon EOS 350D DIGITAL
Firmware
          Firmware 1.0.3
Shooting Date/Time
          25/10/2008 07:44:33
Tv(Shutter Speed)
          1/200Sec.
Av(Aperture Value)
          F8.0
Metering Modes
          Evaluative metering
Exposure Compensation
          0
ISO Speed
          100
Lens
          24-70mm
Focal Length
          24.0 mm
Image size
          3456 x 2304
Image Quality
          RAW
Flash
          Off
White Balance
          Auto
AF mode
          AI focus AF
Picture Style
          -
Parameters
          Tone Curve :    -
          Sharpness level :    -
          Pattern Sharpness :    -
          Contrast :    1
          Sharpness :    1
          Color saturation :    1
          Color tone :    0
          Long exposure noise reduction :    -
          High ISO speed noise reduction :    -
          Highlight tone priority :    -
Color matrix
          -
Color Space
          sRGB
File Size
          7276 KB
Dust Delete Data
          No
Drive Mode
          Continuous shooting
GPS Data
          Satellite signal status :    -
          Date(UTC) :    -
          Latitude :    -
          Longitude :    -
          Altitude :    -
          Geographic coordinate system :    -

[EOSThree]

Have you done any post processing on these? I put the first one in Lightroom and used a little unsharp mask on it and it sharpened up nicely.
On the first one you used f/2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/3200. That aperture will yield a pretty narrow depth of field so you will have some of the photo that won't be in super sharp focus.
The second one uses a better aperture and the foreground looks quite sharp, I think the background is too(it's hard to tell with a small photo). The trouble here is shooting nearly into the sun. There is a fair amount of haze and shooting into the sun exaggerates the haziness.
You should be able to easily handhold to a shutter speed about 1/focal length x crop factor of the lens you are using. With good technique you should be able to exceed this by quite a bit. And IS will improve this even more.
As far as upping the ISO, the photos you present here don't need a boost in ISO as the shutter speed is plenty fast. I used to have a 350D and I did notice it produced a fair amount of noise, but I wouldn't be afraid of shooting up to ISO 400. With a little noise reduction the photos clean up nicely.

[motlive]

Thanks for the reply EOSThree, Ive aways felt PP was cheating, guess I should get over it and realise that everyone does it.

I think im getting confused with some fundamentals here.

A low aperture means more light comes into the camera but gives a low DOF, more light allows a greater shutter speed to counter camera shake etc. The ISO changes the sensitivity of the sensor, how quickly it gathers the light source. A low ISO requires a low aperture to allow the correct amount of light to enter and give a correct exposure. A slow shutter speed means less light hits the sensor so a faster ISO speed collects the light quicker at the price of more noise on the picture.

Its so disheartening when you can never seem to be able to take a decent picture.

[Frog]

a slow shutter lets more light in.
A low iso only requires a low aperture if the light requires a low aperture.
Your shutter speed in the first shot would freeze a hummingbirds wings but its also why the depth of field is so shallow.
Without an IS lens you should be able to shoot at speeds as low as 1/60th handheld which would allow for smaller apertures(bigger numbers), which give more dof.

[EOSThree]

Thanks for the reply EOSThree, Ive aways felt PP was cheating, guess I should get over it and realise that everyone does it.

I think im getting confused with some fundamentals here.

A low aperture means more light comes into the camera but gives a low DOF, more light allows a greater shutter speed to counter camera shake etc. The ISO changes the sensitivity of the sensor, how quickly it gathers the light source. A low ISO requires a low aperture to allow the correct amount of light to enter and give a correct exposure. A slow shutter speed means less light hits the sensor so a faster ISO speed collects the light quicker at the price of more noise on the picture.

Its so disheartening when you can never seem to be able to take a decent picture.

The photos you posted here look decent to me. They just need a little tweaking. Post processing is not cheating, it has been done for years, well before the advent of the digital sensor. Burning, dodging, cropping, unsharp masking, exposure compensation, color correction, contrast correction, etc, etc, have been used for a lot longer than you think. It's all part of the fine art photography process.

Your camera purposely produces a neutral slightly soft image straight out of the camera. If you shoot mostly JPEG and don't like to post process, you can adjust the output with the parameters in your camera. I am pretty unfamiliar with this as I always shoot in RAW and adjust as needed after download. Read up on "Picture Styles" in your manual.

Smaller numbers in aperture mean a larger opening, it's a ratio: 1/2.8 is larger than 1/16. A larger opening means more light, but it also means less depth of field, or a smaller portion of the photographic plane will be in focus.

ISO is the sensitivity of the sensor, more sensitivity comes at a cost, that cost is noise.
Lower ISOs deliver a cleaner photograph, although as the digital world progresses amazing progress has been made here. A low ISO may require a larger aperture, or a slower shutter speed, it all depends on how much light is available to start with.

Shutter speed also controls the light to your photo. The slower the shutter speed, the more light that gets to the sensor. But of course this too comes at a price: too slow of a shutter speed introduces blur to the photo, either the subject moves, or the photographer moves in the allotted time(shutter speed). All three must be used in concert to produce a usable result. Then that result is massaged to produce a fine image to print.


I recommend getting the book Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson, it explains the relationships between Shutter Speed, Aperture, and ISO.

[another view]

Ive aways felt PP was cheating, guess I should get over it and realise that everyone does it.

Not everyone does much of it and I'm not an expert - but it doesn't have to be cheating. It can be, just as "tricks" could be done with film and in the darkroom to make a print of something that never happened, etc. But the best handmade prints are rarely (or probably never) "straight" prints. They all have some manipulation to them. People dropping color negative film at labs to be developed and printed have no idea how much correction is done to their shots to get a decent print. Sometimes they're lightened or darkened, sometimes colors are adjusted and almost always they're cropped a little bit (much to the chagrin of photographers who carefully plan their composition). And even within a digital camera there's some manipulation possible - different color modes, etc.

I agree with other comments - these shots aren't as bad as I figured based on your first post. In the first shot, where was your focus point? A more moderate aperture like f8 would have still given you a good hand-holdable shutter speed and a lot more depth of field. Chances are the overall sharpness (which is different than DOF) would be better too.

[Kajuah]

The photos you shot are shot in RAW, therefore they are the raw data that comes off your camera before it passes through the in camera processing unit, therefore it's a completely unprocessed image and it hasn't even benefited in the least towards it's full potential. Try visualizing this scenario:

Instead of using windows XP you choose, instead, to use DOS and then do every little action through sequences of commands that you type on the little CMD screen. Because to point and click would be considered "cheating"; essentially its the same scenario...who cares? As long as the job gets done, the way I see it you can either have a crappy mundane image or you can touch it up and adjust things like white balance (which is nearly impossible to properly set when shooting towards the sun, anyway) or fringing.

For lack of complicating things any further; your focus is set to auto. On the 350D the AF isn't very reliable, try using manual focus in future.

In the second picture you notice the foreground element (chain and fence) is significantly more sharp than the distant tower - this is because the focus is off, and it should instead be set to something about infinity (for that distance of subject).

[motlive]

practice practice practice

EOS Three - I already have the book, I think I need to give it another read.

Another View - Maybe its because im not very good at PP, ill get my practice in and see what I can come up with.

Kajuah - You analogy is very good and will take note of the manual focus as I havent used it too much. I think I was relying on the auto focus a lot during the pictures.

I guess I am expecting too much at the moment, you know when you look at something and can see the photo in your head, then when you take it it just doesnt come out at all like you saw.

[Franglais]

I guess I am expecting too much at the moment, you know when you look at something and can see the photo in your head, then when you take it it just doesnt come out at all like you saw.

Can you describe to us what you expected the picture to look like?

You have two pictures taken in fairly soft light. It sounds like you want them to look sharp but the lighting is not contrasty (which would make them look sharp). It sound like you want to use limited depth of field but I can't see a clear subject to focus on.

You may be previsualising an image which is not in your subject.

[freygr]

practice practice practice

EOS Three - I already have the book, I think I need to give it another read.

Another View - Maybe its because im not very good at PP, ill get my practice in and see what I can come up with.

Kajuah - You analogy is very good and will take note of the manual focus as I havent used it too much. I think I was relying on the auto focus a lot during the pictures.

I guess I am expecting too much at the moment, you know when you look at something and can see the photo in your head, then when you take it it just doesnt come out at all like you saw.

Looking at the photos you posted, I really do not see any problems given the angle of the sun and the F stops used.

Photo 1) the auto focus focused on the left side of the frame making the wall on the left sharp as a tack but the low F stop of 2.8 does not give the depth of field needed for the rest of the wall to be in focus. You should be using the aperture mode of your camera and you should look at one of DOF calculators on the web.

Photo 2) The sun is just out of frame but the lack of sharpness at the tower is due to lens flair as the church? on the left is very sharp. You should of had a lens hood on the lens but it may not of helped! You need the sun not even close to being in the frame.

[JTcooper]

My friend, you need to remember the basic rule of thumb is Aperture control flash and shutter speed control ambien. The more you shoot the better you get, it take alot of practice I guess hope this help and don't give up.

[motlive]

freygr - I had a lens hood on, but the sun was just rising and the lighting at this time was amazing, everything stood out so well and the shadows looked great, I just didnt capture it well which is why I think I am rather dissapointed with my shots. I was rushing too much to get pictures before the light was gone.

Thank you all so much for you replies its really given me that extra boost and to not be too critical of my self, after all these are for my personal use.

This is one of my favourite shots of my holiday and I think it turned out really well.


I have just slightly tweaked the temperature and expose +0.25 but other than that its not had much else done. By the way if my misses see's this photo it didnt come from me (she was very hung over)

[Franglais]

Now this photo is an example of limited depth of field. Sharp focus should be on the subject which is in this case - her eye. Always focus on the eyes, it's where the sparkle of life is. It looks like you've got it right though the image posted is too small to check.

I would make it lighter still, probably +1.0 if this is a RAW file

[motlive]

damn LCD monitors..

on my one at home the picture looks fine, but looking at it here in work its is rather dark.. will make the change franglais.

I was aiming for the eye but i think it is slightly off.

if i posted a RAW file of one that is rather poor would you very nice people make it look nice so I can see an example of what is achieveable as i am rather new to PP.

[MarcusK]

I can't really add to what has been said, so I will simply, if you will allow me, give my version of explaining aperture and shutter speed, combined with ISO.

To start off, ISO is sensitivity, which basically means how sensitive the sensor (or film) is to light... in other words, how much light it requires. Both Aperture and Shutter Speed control the amount of light. A bigger aperture yields more light than a smaller one, and a slower shutter speed yields more light than a slower one and vice-versa.

The reason you would control either aperture or shutter speed depends on what you want.

With Aperture you are controlling the depth of field or how much of the image is in focus relative to your focus point. The bigger the aperture (the smaller the number) the less depth you get, and vice versa.

With Shutter Speed, it is about motion. The more you want to freeze the action, the faster the shutter speed you need to choose. The more motion blur you want to introduce, the slower the shutter....

Therefore, start by assessing the required ISO. During the day, you will most often be at ISO 100 or 200.... You will then need to get your exposure right (at 0 basically) which is controlled by both the Aperture and Shutter Speed...

If you are looking for DOF, then you will start by defining the Aperture, and then setting the required shutter speed...

If there is movement and you want to freeze it, or blur it, you will prioritize the shutter speed, and then set the proper Aperture for the exposure....

That being said, I would suggest you work with Aperture priority (Av) or Shutter priority (Tv) mode depending on the situation, until you get the hang of it....

Also, learning the basic PP will help a lot in getting things right...

Hope this helps....

[Franglais]

damn LCD monitors..

on my one at home the picture looks fine, but looking at it here in work its is rather dark.. will make the change franglais.

I was aiming for the eye but i think it is slightly off.

if i posted a RAW file of one that is rather poor would you very nice people make it look nice so I can see an example of what is achieveable as i am rather new to PP.

Monitor calibration. Printer calibration. Even the software can make things look different. On my system ACDSee adds extra contrast on screen which I don't have when I print..

I don't think you can post a RAW file to this forum. I took your JPG of the Ms. and modified it in Paint Shop Pro so it looked right to me

[Methodical]

... A bigger aperture yields more light than a smaller one, and a slower shutter speed yields more light than a slower one and vice-versa...

Hello MarcusK, one question. should it be "... and a slower shutter speed yields more light than a {faster} one and vice versa" instead of a "slower" shutter speed. Just want to make sure because I thought a faster shutter speed allows less light. Or am I misreading your explanation? Let me know.

By the way your explanation here is very lamen and straight to the point.

Thanks

[MarcusK]

Methodical, yes, you are right. What I was trying to say is this:

Bigger Aperture yields more light than and Small Aperture.

Slower Shutter yields more light than A FASTER one... did not notice the repeat 'slower'... Thanks for pointing it out...

Glad I could help

[Grandpaw]

If you are trying to understand how the different settings effect your picture I would recommend going to the address below and playing with the controls. This site will let you instantly adjust ISO, Aperture, and shutter speed to see how changes in settings effect your picture. Hope you will take the time to look at this site, Jeff

http://dryreading.com/camera/index.html

[Methodical]

If you are trying to understand how the different settings effect your picture I would recommend going to the address below and playing with the controls. This site will let you instantly adjust ISO, Aperture, and shutter speed to see how changes in settings effect your picture. Hope you will take the time to look at this site, Jeff

http://dryreading.com/camera/index.html

Great site. Now I can visualize the affects.

Thanks

[motlive]

Hey, thanks for the replies, i didnt notice them, the email notifications must have got lost.

Grandpaw that site looks great, and it already gets bonus points with me for it having a boxer dog on i love boxer dogs.

Here is another picture I took similar to the one I posted which turned out pretty well, and after people said about tinkering with the sharpness etc im going through them and adjusting where needed.

[motlive]

haha.. just going through my pictures from pisa.. and was looking at them and thinkin.. "jeez I wasnt holding my camera very straight"....

I then realised that the photos where taken up the tower and its the pillars that arnt straight

[Sebastian]

damn LCD monitors..

on my one at home the picture looks fine, but looking at it here in work its is rather dark.. will make the change franglais.ople make it look nice so I can see an example of what is achieveable as i am rather new to PP.

LCD monitors have nothing to do with it, it's simply a matter of not trusting ANY monitor unless it's calibrated. One sure-fire way to check exposure is to learn and use the histogram.

Digital Camera Histogram Guide >>

[motlive]

Could anyone recommend a screen calibration unit for a laptop? nothing too pricy,