First attempt at "night" pictures

[bjtindle]

Gary said about everything I wanted to say about shot #1. It's a good shot, but the highlights are too bright (you'll lose details and it's distracting) and the shot is too blurry.
Thanks for sharing.

I did attempt to sharpen the photo, it looks much better, can't get rid of the highlights tho unless there is some magic in Paint Shop Pro that I do not know how to use yet which is entirely possible. It did help the photo quite a bit.

Betty

[Chunk]

I did attempt to sharpen the photo, it looks much better, can't get rid of the highlights tho unless there is some magic in Paint Shop Pro that I do not know how to use yet which is entirely possible. It did help the photo quite a bit.

Betty

The sharpness here has to come with the exposure, not in the software afterwords.
You may have been inside the camera's minimum focusing distance in which case you would want to switch to a macro setting if it has one of those.
Another thing to do is to stand further away and zoom your lens to fill the frame. This might also give a less blown out flash exposure. Also - the longer focal length can generally give a better, less distorted facial image. The portrait experts can tell you what focal length to use, but I think that 80-110 (35mm equiv) is good for portraits.

[bjtindle]

The sharpness here has to come with the exposure, not in the software afterwords.
You may have been inside the camera's minimum focusing distance in which case you would want to switch to a macro setting if it has one of those.
Another thing to do is to stand further away and zoom your lens to fill the frame. This might also give a less blown out flash exposure. Also - the longer focal length can generally give a better, less distorted facial image. The portrait experts can tell you what focal length to use, but I think that 80-110 (35mm equiv) is good for portraits.

My niece was VERY close, she couldn't resist! I had no choice in the matter. She was there before I knew it, thereby helping my photo become blurry. The 80-110, I will have to read my manual on my digital again to become more familiar to the f-stops and exposures. Haven't tried to figure them out on the digital yet as I am still learning them on my Chinon. I had a feeling that if she were further away the flash affect might not have been so bad. That is ok, one thing about digitals, can try over and over without developing and can erase the booboos. I especially like that feature!