15 PRO SECRETS for SHARP pictures & video: Camera Settings, Lenses & More! 

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Chelsea's humour is the best, loved the intro. Also a well done informative video that will surely help new shooters.

It’s so fun watching you two working together. Thanks for all the good information. Keep up the great work.

Your videos are excellent and I always learn something new. My sharp pictures started with dull eyes. When photos were not sharp, I thought it must be the camera. On a hunch, I read about the diopter dial on my Nikon and made adjustments up and down while taking pictures. Found out, camera ok, i am not. Got glasses for day to day and made an adjustment on the diopter because shooting weatng glases is a pain. Everything perfect now and I owe it to the camera!

Something I found to work well when I get a picture slightly out of focus is to turn the picture into black and white and crank up the sharpness and play around with the light. I mostly take action pictures of mountain biking so the solution work well for me. It usually ends up looking like those old vintage action pictures from old magazines

Tony your books are well written & nicely hyperlinked. And Chelsea is a delight to learn from.

1. There are a few problems with the reciprocal rule, but one of them is cropped sensor folks don't apply the crop factor. So a 100mm lens becomes a 150mm lens. The reciprocal is 1/150. In a photo course I took I was taught to go at least double the reciprocal rule or higher as you state. 2. Also with a zoom, lets say the 70 - 200mm lens, you have to use 200 as the number you are working with in reciprocal shutter speed, even if you shooting at the 70mm range. Now take that same zoom on a crop camera, and you have to know your long mm is not 200 but 300mm. 3. A tip I read in a Canadian photo mag is that the photographer shooting birds tried out, with great success, using a hunting shelter (tent) blind to photograph birds. You have to wait roughly 20 minutes for the birds to settle down after they have detected your presence. The photographer found this technique worked so well, he stopped using longer telephoto lenses, and stuck with his 70 - 200 mm lens. You can pick up one of these blinds for about $130 much cheaper than a Canon 600 lens. 4. And I just learned this and I can't explain it to you, can't say why it works. If a photographer is shooting in cold snow conditions, take your lens hood off, counter intuitive I know. 5. You did a review of I think four long zooms and you weren't happy with how the Sigma 150 - 600mm performed. At the time I can remember thinking, well did you make an adjustment to the lens using the Sigma USB docking station. If you had have said, - "you know what, we tried making adjustments to the 150 - 600 mm lens and we still got poor results" - I would have agreed with you. You did not.

what a great intro xD. Chelsea nailed it!

Excellent list! I’ll be recommending this video to my students and photographers in a local forum. One tip that was missed in the section on image stabilization, you mentioned making sure that it was turned on. However, if you are using a tripod, it must be turned off. I’m a college photography instructor, and I tell my students this all the time when it comes to architecture, landscape, and Astro work - and it’s definitely one of the most common mistakes! (And as a commercial architecture photographer, I can definitely admit that I still catch myself on this mistake once in a while!) Some cameras and lenses supposedly have a ‘tripod sensor,’ but in my experience, they simply cannot be relied upon. My personal rule is image stabilization is always off, and I turn it on when I need it (handheld portraits, events, general walkaround evening, etc.). ((And sometimes I forget to turn it back off again 🤦🏼‍♂️). Regardless, it must be turned off when you’re using a tripod.

There is a program called "Amped Replay" that will actually remove camera movement blur and object motion blur. It's actually designed as a tool for law enforcement forensic video analysis. For example removing motion blur on license plates to enable identification of vehicles. I've tried it myself and it really works. There is probably some quality compromise somewhere in the process, but nothing that I have noticed. Thanks both of you for great videos through the years. You guys are very appreciated!

I think this is one of your best videos yet. 😊

This was magnificent, exactly what I was looking for. Keep up the great work!

Thanks for these reminders, it took years of learning this by making all these mistakes. Wish I had this 20 years ago!! I Love Chelsea's sense of humor, my favorite is still when you do the wildlife shoot and she comes by to ask all the questions and give advice, well done!!

GASP ! It was Chelsea all along ! ;-) As always, thanks.

you always provide value and education. Massive respect to you both. Keep it up!

Love the intro! Recently I learned that my point-and-shoot cameras automatically have more depth of field. When I started moving into bigger-sensor cameras, I was surprised that my pictures were not as sharp as expected. So I took some experimental pictures at different f-stops and shutter speeds to see what the differences were, and which gave the best results.

Great intro - and always a pleasure watching you two work together. TY for the tips.

Fabulous video. It's been 6 - 12 months since I saw one of you twos videos. You are truly fabulous together and both experts in photography. Thank you. I've got 45 years experience and 120,000 photos one at a time. I have a Sony A7 mark 1 and 24-105 F4 G Lens. The lens is truly legendary and the camera is my first super digital camera it's like taking my 1981 Contax 139 35 mm camera the tops in it's day and adding a Supercomputer to it. I got it for $500 3 years ago used 1 week open box Best Buy Canada. I gig the lens half price only used for 1 day it was a Covid special as the oringal buy was ready to tour the world until Covid hit and I bought it $1,000 off in perfect condition. It is a dream lens. I took 75,000 photos in under 3 years with that camera and lens. Your Videos Tony and Chelsea and the best in photography. They also have entertainment value.

Thanks for this vid. I've been searching for the Holy Grail of explanations for this biggest of problems and NOTHING has come even close to this comprehensive and fun-nerdy list. You guys are great! Thanks again.

I always love how you guys bring so much information. One of the things I never realized is the effect of backlighting on sharpness. I have an RX100 that I have been using for a while because I really value portability. But I have noticed that it doesn't love backlit subjects so much. I get a little bit of a haze that I have trouble resolving in post. I had always thought that lenses just make it so that the light from a certain part of the view goes straight to a certain part of the sensor. And I thought that worked perfectly with every lens. In retrospect, I can see that that was a foolish belief, but thanks for disabusing me of it!

Great paced video that left no rock unturned. Fantastic, both of you.

Just Love you Chelsea, that is a great Intro, you really add so much to your RU-vid Channel don't ever Stop! Great Show , Broadway is waiting for you Chelsea!!

That was such a great post Tony and Chelsea! Another suggestion would be to get sharp photographs you should use a tripod whenever possible!📷

Dude I love you Chelsea and Tony

Wow! Thank you so much for this video! I know my camera is not the best (Canon 1200D/Rebel T5). I bought it when I entered college for all around media+graphic design. What you guys said about the ISO opened my eyes. Lowering the ISO really helped. Putting my camera on a tripod and lowering aperture solved the problem (use more light if needed). I can fix it in post most of the time. I love these educational video's. I find it hard to find information about these topics. If I do find them, they use terminology is so complex, that a beginner of some what advanced person can not understand it. Your explanation is clear and thorough. The examples really help with the visualization and helps me understand so i can process the information better. English is not my native language, so it really helps. Much love.

You guys are great! I appreciate you taking the time to give us information.

Great information and reminders to stay sharp. You two are the best!

I was hypnotic during the square space ad because of the glimpse of the Girl with the pearl Earing. Haven't seen that in a while.

Great discussion. thank you. when shooting from a commercial airline at 30k, by setting the lens to max aperture and adjusting to get best max shutter speed, the plane window"disappears"and the underlying vibration of the plane(which can feel like its still)is almost eliminated. . also by shooting wider angle much of the shake can be reduced. then I can crop. I have often been amazed at the detail I can get of the ground , etc. This has also held true , to some extent when shooting through windows of the car and home. I would like you all to talk about the different focus pattern settings and how best to use them-

Great video. Despite almost 70 years taking pictures I find that my focus is off sometimes. This covers the solutions really well.

Your tips are always worth my time.👍

Great video! I’m going to watch this many times over the years.

you guys are a riot. i love you both.

Love your show. Always useful, detailed and extremely helpful information.

Really great video! Thanks for all the tips and I am looking forward to trying them. Keep up the great videos!

Also for camera shake, and not so much cause by you, the user, but if you're using a DSLR, see if you camera support mirror-up mode. Some do, and this can help reduce vibration from the camera if you can use this mode. I know people doing long exposures find this useful (like landscape shooters or astro shooters). It helps minimize the vibration from the mirror coming up before the exposure is taken, and allow the sensor and camera to settle a little before the exposure is taken (pair this with a short self-timer, like 2 or 5 seconds). For missed focus, just take the extra second and make sure that the AF point is where you want it and also that the camera confirms focus (either by a beep or by the focus point changing color, like on NIkon ML bodies, its turns from red to green when focus is locked). For apertures, if I have the time, I've just started doing some focus stacking (mainly when doing landscapes and shooting things that aren't moving as this method can take a bit longer... an additional say 20-30 seconds more in some cases). This way you can get the best of both worlds (use the "sweet" spot and get everything in focus, but it's only really needed when you need most or all of the scene in focus and the depth of the scene is deep, like a grand landscape, although you can get away with something like f/11 or f/16 in most cases and don't always need to focus stack -- I mainly use it when I have a foreground, mid-ground and background that all need to be in sharp focus).

Thanks for sharing.... great video & comments to help with understanding out of focus pics.....I always find its when I am in a hurry to get the photo because it is moving..... cheers 😀

This is terrific guys. You covered so much useful information, rapid fire, making this one packed video. Excellent. You explained some issues I have encountered and given me a solution. How good is that. Thanks so much.

Thanks for excellent teaching. To me I would like to hear about shooting modes, such as aperture priority, speed priority or manual.

Always appreciate your valuable input. Many thanks

Your videos are such a blessing to me!

Extremely useful. Great reminders and some new considerations.

You guys are so helpful in understanding photography! I have been using SonyA6000's and Sony A6400. Auto Focus has always been challenging. I got plenty of in focus, but sometimes when I thought I had a good shot it's all blurry. I'm finding if I keep the F stop at f8 and below things work great when at air shows. I have been watching you guys since I bought my first Sony A5000. Thanks so much!

Really helpful. I learned a lot. Many thanks for this.

Thank you guys for your great content.

Awesome videos. One additional tip: Use single point focus. Try to avoid "zone" or other types of selection which select multiple auto focus points.

Love the intro, you are amazing, thanks for the videos

Humor and knowledge! I love you, guys. You helped me set the first steps on probably a long journey. Even so the set-up of the Nikon D7200 is quite a challenge you made it easier with the information and most important fun to try. Thanks a lot, greetings from Holland

intro was 10 million out of 10

Great intro Chelsea! LOL! That was awesome. I had to take a double take on that first take :-) love you guys!

An additional one I found is refraction caused by my lens being 20+ degrees hotter than the air around me outside. I’m thinking the front glass is heating up a layer of air held there by my large lens hood on my 600mm. I take the hood off and the problem went away, put it back on and the problem immediately came back. Plus in high wind situations or I let my gear adjust to the environment for at least an hour I don’t have that problem.

Great tips! Thank you for sharing them.

Quality content and great intro!

Great Video,very informative and educational.

you guys did a great job! sharp and unsharp filters are useable as well - thanks

Have to say, best intro ever......lol love the hat, I think Peters got some competition on the cool factor now lol

Thanks. This is helpful. I know a lot of this, but it is good to know others do not get perfect focus all the time either.

One of your best vids IMO--thank you.

Thank you! Chelsea - your journey from the heavier and lower-res Canon kit to Sony A7riii was identical to me... accept it's taken 3 years of frustration for me to realise that it's my fault! My airshow low-shutter-speed trying to capture propellor movement has been a constant frustration to me. I even got the new A1 on evaluation from Sony NZ to experiment with - I sucked with that too. It was simply your start to this video that showed me that my technique was at fault. My Canon 5D3 had the battery grip and 100-400mm lens and it weighed a ton! That 21mp combo had so much mass that it didn't shake lol. In the past 2 weeks I've got the extra battery grip for my A7riii and changed how I hold my camera (plus the awareness that I need to reduce movement) and I'm finally winning. Just this morning I've shot a heli at 5000' - me looking straight up with my A7riii + 200-600 at 600mm. 6/8 shots were sharp! YESSSS! Thank you, both off you for these videos.

Omg the Snoop 420. I freaking love you and Tony!

Thanks for this! Lots of good tips!

Great video guys! So many great tips, especially rolling the finger over the shutter rather than just pressing the lens which I do. Also. I remember a previous video when Tony mentioned taking the pictures as you exhale for minimal shake when taking the pic. Love watching your videos! Keep up the great work!

You had me at the intro! Chelsea is the best! 😄

Being 74, but not without any hint of Parkinsons (yet), I still have some "age shake". So, I have found that the 20fps of my R5 with electronic shutter allws me to even take lunar photos hand-held (EF 100-400 with a 2x converter (i.e. f11 even with the EF/RF converter)). Yes, I have to go through a bunch of shots and yes I "ususally" get 10-50% or so that are usable.

All i can hope for in life is to have a relationship like Chelsea and Tony. You two are great together 😍

Great video guys. Interested to get your thoughts on how turning off image stabilization can affect sharpness, ie when using a tripod, or shooting at super high shutter speeds (birds in flight).

whatever you did with the color grading and iq in the garden, keep it up! very pleasing image!

What I have learn from this video is that Tony changed a lot over the course of the time ... while Chelsea remains the same. I have bookmarked this video and had already repeated 10 times to memorizing all the points, I hope these points will pop in my head next time that I am about to shoot. Thank you so so so much for this video and this helps a lot.

Great work guys thanks for your videos they are so help! 👇

As someone using a bottom of the range Canon with cheaper lens, I’m always looking for ways to improve the sharpness, this has to be the most comprehensive and informative video I’ve ever seen. Thanks so much, you’ve given me lots to consider and try out 👍

Thanks great info, I recently have stopped using back button focus as a default choosing to use it selectively as needed found my portraits much crisper as the shutter release and focus are instant. Also this video is a lot more richer and sharper, in addition the lighting appears color balanced is this something new?

Nice well rounded video

Haha, that was excellent Chelsea. Thanks for another very helpful video.

Just love your channel

You guys are Awesome!!!

Hi tony thanks for great tips , just a question : is it right that any lens has its sharpest point in a specific diaphragm like 7-8 or 9-10 f number and in other f numbers the sharpness decrease ?

Thx for the tips!!!

As always - great advice.

Great info!!

Thank you for these tips. Is micro adjustments the same as lens calibration correction?

That intro was bomb 💥💥💥

I'm a newbie and you two are adorable and so talented...I'm eating up your book and course.

Interesting comment on Micro Adjustments. I had my 1DX mk2 professionally calibrated with my EF 100-400mm mk2 and EF 600mm F4 L IS mk2 and immediately saw improvements on all my photos.

Great video!

As always..... Good info!! Anybody else hear the Blue-jay shrieking (14 min) behind Chelsea??? Lol! Dedicated Wildlife people!!

This Is a true power couple. Love this guys.

Great recommendations! I'm definitely going to try some of these. I shoot birds/wildlife. It's always tough to get closer. Your aperture suggestions opened my eyes. I'm aware of AA/Low Pass Filters. Lots of my friends shoot with the D500. It doesn't have the filter so no issue. I'm shooting with the R6 + 100-500mm IS USM L. What's the situation with the Low Pass filter on this camera? Sometimes I wish I had started my journey with Nikon just for this issue. I'm too invested in gear now to switch. Thanks Tony and Chelsea for another informative video.

Love your videos.

I like your work 👍🏻

Great guys thanks

Great video 👌 I was just out the other day trying to shot fast moving bird's, when I got home 🏡 noticed that the Iso was too high for some of the shots. I am shooting with a Canon 90d and 18- 300 Sigma lens. I am looking at a Canon 70-200 f-4 what do you think please any input will help.

Love the Dunning-Kruger reference!

haha love these two!

Is there any difference between mechanical shutter or electronic shutter in connection with sharpness of images. (Sony A7IV) Very nice video with lots of tips.

I've tested vintage medium format lenses on both full-frame and APS-C bodies. The sharpness was on par with my dedicated macro lens, plus edge-to-edge flat sharpness. The only limitation is the manual focus, however it's a small price to pay for critical sharpness.

Love your humor Chelsea and all the content you both post! Would you please share what camera and lens are you using to recording this? TIA

Good one!!!

I seemed to micro-adjusted improved my hit rate on focusing. My Tamron 70-200mm 2.8 G2 kept back focusing 8/10 times. But once I micro-adjusted I got maybe 5 or 4/10 back focused.

Tripod and monopod helped me, telling people to not walk around the house and shooting between wind gusts. But usually, you just need more like and stay in focus. I need to add all these to a checklist for every time I prepare for a shot.

Chelsea...your humor is awesome. STRAIGHT MAN tONY IS GREAT TOO