Canon Community

MrsWolfman · ‎06-10-2016

Still portrait of my son. Using my canon 80d with my canon 50mm lens. Golden hour and settings were 180 / 4.0 /250 and my image is blurry when blown up.

Shutter speed to slow?

Help!

Waddizzle · ‎06-10-2016

I'm pretty sure that the reason the focus may not be as sharp as you'd hoped is two-fold.

One, the shutter speed is fairly low, only about 1/80 of a second. Camera shake may be an issue. The shutter speed isn't really fast enough to freeze any motion that your son may have made when the shutter fired, either.

Two, if you used the EF 50mm f/1.8 STM lens, it lacks Image Stabilization to remove camera shake. That is a pretty good lens, once you learn what it can and cannot do. Just use a fast shutter with it. I like f/2.8 aperture for that shot, too.

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"Enjoying photography since 1972."

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ScottyP · ‎06-10-2016

Using flash in sun is actually great. It would let you equalize your shaded subject with his bright background.

I would set the center autofocus point only, and of course put that point on the subject's face. If you let the camera choose which of the focus points to use it may choose the wrong thing to focus on.

Yes, a faster shutter would be good for avoiding hand shake blur.

Scott

Canon 5d mk 4, Canon 6D, EF 70-200mm L f/2.8 IS mk2; EF 16-35 f/2.8 L mk. III; Sigma 35mm f/1.4 "Art" EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro; EF 85mm f/1.8; EF 1.4x extender mk. 3; EF 24-105 f/4 L; EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS; 3x Phottix Mitros+ speedlites

Why do so many people say "FER-tographer"? Do they take "fertographs"?

View solution in original post

RobertTheFat · ‎06-10-2016

We'd have to see it to even venture an intelligent guess. It makes a big difference, for example, whether all or part of the picture is blurry. How much you tried to blow it up also matters, obviously.

Bob
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA

kvbarkley · ‎06-10-2016

What was the size of the image? Were you shooting "L" or RAW?

MrsWolfman · ‎06-10-2016

I added the pic to the original post.

Thanks!

kvbarkley · ‎06-10-2016

Looks like it focused on the tree since it was closer. If you open the pic in DPP it will tell you where the focus points were.

MrsWolfman · ‎06-10-2016

I will do that. Thank you.

Waddizzle · ‎06-10-2016

I'm pretty sure that the reason the focus may not be as sharp as you'd hoped is two-fold.

One, the shutter speed is fairly low, only about 1/80 of a second. Camera shake may be an issue. The shutter speed isn't really fast enough to freeze any motion that your son may have made when the shutter fired, either.

Two, if you used the EF 50mm f/1.8 STM lens, it lacks Image Stabilization to remove camera shake. That is a pretty good lens, once you learn what it can and cannot do. Just use a fast shutter with it. I like f/2.8 aperture for that shot, too.

--------------------------------------------------------
"Enjoying photography since 1972."

TTMartin · ‎06-10-2016

@MrsWolfman wrote:
Still portrait of my son. Using my canon 80d with my canon 50mm lens. Golden hour and settings were 180 / 4.0 /250 and my image is blurry when blown up.

Shutter speed to slow?

Help!

What did you do wrong.

You had the car in the background.

You have a backlit subject with no fill flash so the background is blown out.

And you pixel peeped the photo zooming into 100%, which is like watching as 70" TV from 18" away and worried that it is soft.

The biggest issues with that photo are not whether it is sharp or not.

MrsWolfman · ‎06-10-2016

Wow...that was a little harsh. Thank you for your input though. As someone who has just started trying to take better pictures and is slowly learning that was a little rough but I put it out there.

MrsWolfman · ‎06-10-2016

Thank you so much for your reply! I greatly appreciate your kind input.

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What did I do wrong?