Portraits

[Reamsie]

Had the kids, the hubby and the camera out this weekend. Window light, 50mm f/1.8

My 12 year old Jack and my 10 year old daughter Ollie


My 7 year old A.J.


A.J. with his daddy

[Alison]

Nice lighting and nice pose with the Dad. Unfortunately they are all a little too soft.

[GB1]

Hi Reamsie -

Well I guess they're not too awful bad from a snapshot perspective, but technically they're suffering from both camera shake due to too slow a shutter speed and too little depth of field. You need a tripod and/or flash for situations like this.

To jump a bit on a soapbox, you basically should never use a shutter speed where the reciprocal of the speed is less than the focal length of the camera. For example, if you're using a 50mm lens, you should not use less than 1/50 of a second without bracing the camera on a tripod. Or consider a VR lens, which allows you to break this rule.

Hope this helps. Learning the basics, like photography aperture and shutter speed fundamentals are critical to getting good shots, and it's really not that hard. A lot of folks say that they don't have time to learn this stuff and just buy a point and shoot that does most of it for you, which is OK. But if you want consistently good shots, you will have to take up the challenge.

G

[Themage]

Ya just the softness is the main thing at the moment.

[fx101]

For this situation USE A TRIPOD. Shoot at f/1.8 if you must (although f/2.8-f/4 will give you better sharpness) and at fast shutter speeds: this will give you sharp shots which you don't seem to be getting. The lighting isn't bad, quite good actually, but the softness is the weak point.