I'm a newbie. Took my best pics today. This video has been educational, giving me something to work on in the next practice session. Thank you for the video.
Craig I want to THAN YOU SO MUCH, since I have started following you and your Tutorial videos my passion for photography has come back!!! I cannot tell you how well your Tutorial and advices are, they have increased my photos by I would say 80-90 %! Once again thank you much appreciate it
I'm watching this in 2022, and this video helped me make my shots sharper. This is my first time shooting with a manual lens, a Tamron vintage telephoto to be precise. I used to bump up the shutter speed to reduce blur, but no one told me before that dropping the aperture a stop or two helps with sharper focus too. The highest on the lens is 3.8, and though I've been afraid to drop it down, and just dropping it to 8 already creates much sharper images. Thanks for the video.
I used to use a string mono pod with my digital camera: a 3/16” screw ice read it into the camera mount on the bottom of the camera with a length of 1/16” nylon cord tied to it. Stepping on the end of the cord and pulling up gave an extra point of stability. The resulting images were noticeably shake free. And when I didn’t need it, I rounded up and stuck it in my pocket. It’s the thing I miss the most when taking pictures with my iPhone.
I often breeze by videos like this as they aren't useful but something told me to view this and it was exceptionally well done. Thanks for the effort to put this together.
Bonus tip number 7 - use the countdown timer function on your camera if you don't have a tripod but can rest the camera on a wall, ledge, fence, post etc...... (This would almost always apply to shooting stills and landscapes etc.....and not moving subjects unless you know exactly when you're going to need to use it which is very rare) but nevertheless a useful and handy tip I think....
A very important point to consider that was not mentioned is that you need to ensure that you focus on the eyes, particularly when you are using a wide aperture. If the eyes are sharp the whole picture appears to be sharp. The first thing that we are normally drawn to in a portrait is the eyes. I found all your tips excellent and will improve your photography when followed.
Calibration is only useful if your lens misses focus constantly in one direction (constant back-focus or front-focus). It's normal for a fast lens to "jump" back and forth slightly at each focus, when using very wide apertures. The workaround is to use live view, as it uses the main sensor for focusing. It's slower, but way more precise. The focus "jumping" occurs because the dedicated AF module is very sensitive, so much that it thinks the subject changed position (this is because of very shallow depth of field).
Great tips, man, thank you. Motion blurr can be interpreted as out of focus for non trained eyes, that tip of double the focal length is very useful. Greetings from Brazil.
Great, thank you! When you're not using a flash you can also enhance sharpness by taking a very short shutter speed at about 1/500 or 1/1000 - especially when you don't have a tripod. But of course this will only work if there's enough light for your lens to capture.
The tripod suggestion is not always convenient to do but it definitely helps. Camera movement from of say 1 cm has much more impact on focus than the model moving 1 cm if shooting a wide aperture 1.2-2.0. There are two different movements involved, camera shake or vibration and camera movement. The former is short duration changes in position from mirror slap, unsteady hands, or even vibration reduction systems at some shutter speeds. This type of vibration is solved usually by increasing shutter speed. Almost every camera has a mechanism resonance where over a narrow range of shutter speed, vibration is worse, usually in the 1/80 to 1/120 speed range, some shutter speed in that range will exaggerate vibration. Experiment to find the speed to avoid, by just moving the shutter speed up a bit or if in low light conditions,moving the shutter speed below that resonance frequency. If you are using vibration reduction, turn off if using a tripod, leaving it one will reduce sharpness. If there is enough light, increase the shutter speed to 3-5 times focal length for better sharpness. The film minimum shutter speed was a rule of thumb of 1/focal length but with digital which has more flexibility in ISO, 1/shutter speedx1.5 or 2.0 is better. The second type of moving is slow displacement to or back from the subject regardless of the shutter speed, which displaces the camera after locking focus that moves the focus plane front or back of the subject focus point. This is a problem with very fast lenses shot wide open giving a very narrow depth of field. This type of blur can be fixed by using a tripod or increasing the depth of field by stopping down the aperture(narrower aperture, higher f/ number. One of the most common sharpness problems is underexposure or high ISO. A well-lit subject will appear sharper because edge contrast is more visible with low noise images. This is resolved by using fill flash or more attention to the light sources and direction. Flash, even on a bright sunny day is very helpful with any image where the subject is against a bright background. Almost every great image of people or product detail, even if shot on the beach(especially of shot on the beach) used augmented lighting. Beginners often say they do not use flash because they do not like the "flash look", no one does but flash, is looking like flash is not a problem with flash, but with photographer inexperience with it. Every commercial photo they have ever seen and assumed to be natural light has slight modification to suit the subject and conditions. The biggest single improvement a photographer can make to his work is learning how to use light and modifiers. The quality of the results from well-used lighting dwarfs and contribution a camera might make. Great shots are due to great light, not great cameras. Lenses have more impact than the camera which is why experienced photographers have much more invested in lenses than cameras. Lighting or modifiers are the lowest cost part of photography yet has, by far, the greatest impact on resulting images. Good lighting makes sharper images. For people shots, the whole image can be out of focus but appear sharp if the nearest eye is tack sharp. With fast lenses usually the whole face is not sharp but if the eye nearest the viewer is sharp, our brains tell us the whole image is sharp. We evolved as a survival aid, to notice eyes even when hidden in foliage or in a large group like a stadium, we zoom in on eyes that are focused on us. A thousand people might be in a scene but the odds are that we wil spot the one person who is focused on us with their eyes. So careful focusing on the subject's nearest eye makes the entire image look sharp.
If you have that option, why not use a flash on your subject. It eliminates any kind of motion, therefore improving your chances to get a decent shot. A different approach is one I've adopted from shooting macro. Set your focus to manual, adjust it to your subject, then move back a little bit and take continuous shots while moving forward slowly. What you get is a series of shots and you scroll through them to choose the sharpest one. This method has a lot of drawbacks (takes more time, fills your card quickly, takes some practice), but if you're unsure of your skills ad really need to get the shot right, it's an option to consider
Hello Craig,I;m George from Kenya..i have a quick question on how to achieve image sharpness.Currently i'm using nikon d800 and tamron lens 24-70 mm with f 2.8...my biggest worry is that my images are not sharp,i;ve tried the single focus point and the outcome isn't that pleasing especially when shooting a group photo.I don't really know where the problem is coz the images will only capture focus on part of the subject and totally blur the other parts....could you kindly help me out..thank you
Hi Craig, Appreciate the tips! I just got a Z7 and while getting used to the focus system I could not figure how to control the focal points using the focus area mode. The auto focus tries to figure out a group of focal points but I don't seem to have control over which ones. For example, I was trying to capture a plant with flowers spread both across and deep. I want to make sure they are all in focus. I am using the kit lens that came with the Z7 (24-70mm F4). Any advice? Thanks! Arindam (Ricky)
Agreed. I would add that next to sharpness on DxO, I look at lowest Chromatic Aberration (CA). You may never see it on your photographs, even with a bad CA lens, but looking for better composition, blurry background and contrasty backlit siyuations, you'll not be able to avoid it. And then find out it is a lot of hard manual labor to remove it.
This sounds backwards, but... When using a tripod, turn off image stabilization. When there are no vibrations, the stabilization system will still try to correct for them anyway and the motor will actually induce tiny vibrations that would not have been there before.
@@el_teodoro look at the edges of your photo, or if it's a subject with hair, like a person or animal...look closely at the small individual hairs toward the edges. I tried with and without image stabilization, and there is a difference at those points i mentioned. You won't notice it so much at small size prints, but if you enlarge, you will see it.
The Rule „double your focal length“ is absolute important. You can maybe hold the 1/50 of a second with ibis. But the model is moving as well a little bit .....Greetz from 🇩🇪
First of all I would like to thanks for bonus tips, I have learned a lot from your tips, liked and subscribed, feeling confident on my existing gears...#ascertain
I had a nice shot of a fox on the grounds where I live.He was three feet in front of me,I had a 500mm lens with me.Maybe I'll get another shot some other time.
Excellent breakdown and info. Especially relieved to hear someone finally speaking English as expected here in the USA without the question mode and vocal frying. Thanks for that as well.
No tips, just thanks. I didn’t know about the calibration. I’m amazed. I’ve been playing around i guess all these years because i didn’t know this. Also didn’t know.significance of prime lens the way you explain.
even with ibis, eye detection, no calibration on milc I still get some out of focus shots. I guess my dslr was easier to grip and heavier so it didn't move as much. I been just shooting with the lcd more on milc, maybe that is why too. Tripod is great for studio but yeah horrible to carry around. But if you want to nail a shot professionally that is the way to go.
I followed the gorgeous dark hair and angel eyes too. That said, To add to the body stance. I have also had success using longer shutter speeds, I.E. 1/15, 1/25, 1/30 ... By doing what you say but also, hold your breath and squeeze, exactly like a sniper. Because? It works. Thanks for a great video! now if I can get my pulse down. Cheers! P.S. I would love to know the aperture and shutter on those 2 shots at around 1:15 and the second shot at abt 1:20 Just a thought. Curious mostly abt the speed. You did say they were both at f1.4. BTW, in my early days, I shot a model at f2 and got some that her ear was out of focus and some where the tip of her nose was out. Thats a tricky shoot wide open.
Great tips.... here's one more thing not mentioned but its the only way you get a really sharp image. Use a teipod with a remote shutter. No matter stable the tripod is, your body is always vibrating and touching the camera will always vibrate to your rouch even if you cant notice it so a remote release shutter eliminates this and it makes all the difference and the prints just look gorgeous because if you print a picture you blow it up and those small details start to really matter.
Great tips....One question/concern/doubt I have, though....according to your source, DXOMARK, my Canon 5D mk IV with L lenses appear to be one step away from garbage; that doesn't quite compute with me.
Craig, correct me if I'm wrong but, calibrating a lens is not necessary on a mirrorless camera because the focus takes place at the sensor. I thought the micro adjustment was due to the different type of focus system used in slr's due to the pentaprism.
I worked for days to calibrate my lens. I'm not sure a zoom lens can be calibrated from wide to tele. I'm thinking I just need to get a prime lens. I'm tired of EVERYTHING coming up "just shy" of sharp.
