Help on what went wrong here !

[kamboura]

Hi All,
I am looking for your help on this picture.. As you can see, it didn't come out anywhere near what I wanted. I can guess on some of the issues, but I wanted to get a few more opinions from you.

I am using "vintage" equipment. This picture was taken with a Sakar (probably maker of Vivitar lens), Macro Lens 75-200 f4.5, with 2X converter. Handheld at 1/500, don't remember the f-stop, probably the equivelant of f/6. Manual focus camera.

Other than the no flash issue, what else is wrong here? Is it out of focus, is the lens dirty, is there camera shake?, is the lens combo just too old or too cheap to get me a discent picture? Help please.

[kamboura]

Sorry quick addition:

Shot on Kodak ISO 400 Film, then scanned by the lab on the Kodak CD format, which is equal to about 3MP, no editing except scaling it down in irfanview.

[another view]

The scan and image editing could probably be better, but not a big deal here. Is the camera too old to get a good shot? Heck no, the exposure is fine so it works properly.

I think the bluriness is probably caused by missing the focus. At a wide aperture (5.6 is wide in this case), long lens and close focusing distance, the depth of field could easily make the eyes sharp and little else. Put with that a moving subject and no tripod, and the odds of getting the shot are between slim and none (and slim just left town... ). I doubt if camera shake was a problem here even at effective 400mm and 1/500 sec - or at least not much. If you stopped down to say f5.6 but had a 2x converter on, your aperture is really f11 (lose two stops). Next time try it with a tripod and you'll probably have better luck. I also wonder about "stuff" on the lens so you might want to check that out, but it's hard to tell here. Some of the out of focus areas look kind of funny, so maybe there's something on the lens? Just a guess.

[Lemming51]

I think camera-shake is the problem, even at a shutter speed of 1/500. At very short focus distance, movement is exaggerated much more than if you were shooting a subject 20 ft away. Plus at this close distance the depth of field is shallow enough that camera-shake will take you off focus as well.

Your out of focus hightlights are really interesting. Looks for all the world like it was done with a reflex/mirror lens.