I've recently been taking photos of families (outside not studio based) and being paid small amounts for them! I'm getting increasingly frustrated that my images are no where near as sharp at I'd like them to be and in wondering if a new lens may help?
I use a canon 70D and currently have a 50mm f1.8 and the lens which came with the camera, an 18-135mm f3.5-5.6
If I were to invest in new glass, what would you recommend? (Baring in mind that I mostly take photos of kids running wild!) X
Not sure it may need new glass, have you tried to put the ISO speed up, which gives a faster shutter speed and a sharper image.
Just a thought to save any expense unless of course you would like a new lens!!!
Neither of those lenses is known as being particularly sharp. I just checked your project, and you are getting some great shots!
What sort of budget do you have? A good L series may be worth looking at. In a perfect world, something like the 70-200 would be great, but is a little limited at the wide end, and very expensive. Maybe a 24-105, which is a great lense, has stabilisation and is much cheaper than the 24-70. Good luck!
Lastly, are you doing much processing? You could try a mild unsharp mask if you are using Photoshop, that may make a world of difference.
@kiwisnapper Agree with Ashley about a bit of sharpening in an editor. You can try the Unsharp Mask here on 365 and PicMonkey for a start. Even just the Sharpness or Clarity slider will doubtless help. To freely quote Scott Kelby "Every shot with any lens and a digital camera can stand some sharpening." Careful with sharpness around a female face though. Male faces can usually stand a lot more.
But I have looked at just a few of your shots, and I think they are really fine as presented. Perhaps you could point out one that you don't feel is sharp enough?
@padlock I do increase iso sometimes, but I have the fear over grain... Perhaps I need to get over that a bit!!
@kiwisnapper@frankhymus I have been using the sharpening slider in the raw processor in PSE (usually to about 70) Would the sharpening tools you suggest be more effective?
I'll have a look at the lenses you suggest, not really sure of my budget, depends what kind of mood the husband is in!!
One image I don't think is sharp enough is the latest one of the family in the woods. The people are just not sharp... So frustrating!
Hi Alice, I took the liberty of downloading your photo and applying a little sharpening:
For comparison, your original:
I suggest you open one full size in each tab of your browser and flick between them to compare.
Of course, this is only done on a small JPG as downloaded off your photo, so the image deteriorates very quickly when doing this - I assume you are shooting in RAW? If you were to do an unsharp mask on the RAW, or even a large JPG, you would retain much more quality than this.
@kiwisnapper Thank you :) Even looking on my phone screen I can see a difference! I always shoot in RAW so will def have a go at using the unsharp mask. Do you personally have any standard (ish) levels that you use for the radius/threshold etc?
It really does depend on so much. The thing about sharpening is it does technically degrade the image, even though it makes it look so much better. ;o)
With a crop sensor like the 70D (and my old 700D) I would suggest starting at a radius of 1.5-2 pixels, and an amount of 150%. For a full frame like my 5D, you can drop the radius down to 0.5 pixels or so - the quality is already better straight out of camera. I don't tend to play with the threshold setting.
These are for the tool in Photoshop - I haven't used PSE so I'm not sure how that tool works. Also, I'm much more into landscapes than portraits, so you just need to have a little play with the settings.
One tip - with full PS, I always merge my photo to a new layer and then sharpen that - that way, if I get it totally wrong, I can just delete the layer and the image is back to full quality.
@kiwisnapper thanks Ashley, that's all really helpful :) I've had a little look at your project and WOW! Your landscapes are amazing! I particularly love your skies! I'm rubbish at landscapes so I'm totally in awe at yours!
Thanks Alice! I must admit, I'm finding 365 a challenge, and am often 'phoning it in' but every so often I get away for the weekend and get a few shots that gets me energised again.
Just takng a look at the image @kiwisnapper posted of yours and i coudlnt find any exif information. I noticed that the plants in front of the people actually look in focus so i'm wondering :
1. What aperture are you shooting at
2. Are you using centre point focus?
3. What is your shooting style? Are you doing the centre point focus and then focus / recompose?
4. have you tried putting your camera on a tripod and seeing if you need to make microadjustments?
( http://www.ophrysphotography.co.uk/pages/tutoriallensmicroadjustment.htm)
I woudlnt recommend step 4 until we've cancelled issues from the other points
For that image I shot at f5.0 1/100 iso 400. I'm generally shooting in manual so alter my aperture and shutter speed all the time.... I notice that my shutter speed is slow here and that is because it was rather low light in the woods.
I am using centre point focus and recompose (using back button focus). I really struggle choosing specific focal points as I'm usually shooting children so they move too much!! I also don't seem to get good results using AI servo so tend to stick to AF.
Again, because of moving subjects, tripods aren't really an option.
hmmm thats very interesting... so on the image in question, the plants in front of the people are in focus.... if youre using centre point focus and focusing / recomposing, I truly dont think you'd mess up that much
1/100 is fine for this image if it is a 50mm, and the fact that something is in focus, means its not movement blur.
Can you maybe try sticking your camera on a tripod and try the microadjustment test as in my link in point 4?
Final note... using the 50mm f1.8 on a moving scene is going to be awful... it hunts way too much and takes forever to focus. I cant commen ton the other lens though.
As for the 24-105L, i can vouch that it is a good all purpose lens, however its a F4, so youre not going to get the shallow DoF that youre used to on the f1.8.
I fiddled with the photo in Lightroom a bit, and noticed two things that could improve the image a bit (and other images going forward):
1) If you're editing in a photo editor that allows for live histograms, watch the left (shadows) and right (highlights) to see if you can improve on the black-point and white-point respectively. Your white-point was good, but tweaking the black/shadows down a bit gave me richer blacks. Printing the images later, you'll notice an even dramatic difference. What editor are you using?
2) Shoot RAW if you can for the best editing latitude.
3) If you use Lightroom, take a look at the new Dehaze feature. I dialed this up to about +48 (which, on a JPEG file, is totally different than if I were editing with a RAW file) and it cleared things up nicely.
4) Get closer to your subjects, use a telephoto lens, or barring that, crop the photos a little tighter into your subject. Although I love the trees and backdrop in this shot, in the visual hierarchy, your subject should probably be more prominent.
You can take great shots with any equipment. I'd say if you get closer to your subject(s), shoot RAW for more editing breathing room, and fiddle with Lightroom (if that's an available option to you) for post processing, you'll do fine. Yes, expensive lenses do give you more clarity, but clarity doesn't instantly make a great shot.
Lastly, it's super important to learn about reducing handheld shaking by following the one-over-the-focal-length rule. I noticed in your recent photo, it has the following EXIF data:
Camera: Canon EOS 70D
Exposure: 0.01 sec (1/100)
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO Speed: 400
Focal Length: 96 mm
As the 70D is a crop-sensor APS-C with a 1.6x crop factor, in order to freeze handheld shake, your "focal length" isn't 96 mm but 153.6 mm (96 x 1.6). This means that the 1/100th of a second shutter speed was too slow, and with moving subjects, you have motion in the whole frame, plus in your subject. You should be aiming for 1/154 or greater shutter speed at this focal length.
Good news is that your camera does fairly well at higher ISO's, so bumping it up to 800 ISO would give you a full stop, doubling your shutter speed to 1/200th of a second, which is perfect for freezing handheld shake. At that point, unless you're panning the camera with the subject, subject motion blur is fine, as it's probably a little more artistic having the impression of movement in the subject.
Sorry for the huge post...but I did notice you said "Critiques gratefully received!" in the Running Free image, and figured that was a perfect shot to mention the motion freezing rules as they apply to your camera.
@amarand Thank you SO much for your advice. I do shoot in RAW and use PSE13 for editing (I don't have lightroom sadly!). The darker shadows do look better - definitely something I'll keep in mind for future editing.
I'm rubbish with numbers - but i think you're right - i need to get more familiar with thinking about focal length and shutter speed. I feel some research coming on!
I'm always worried about upping my ISO, but perhaps i need to experiment more with higher isos to allow for faster shutter speeds, i currently tend to stay under ISO400.
Huge thanks again for all your advice, I've got so much to learn!
@missalice Lightroom is an -awesome- tool, for sure. But I'm fairly certain that PSE13 can do very similar things. I need to get that installed so I can speak intelligently about its features to people.
As far as the focal length thing, you could just write the number on a piece of white gaffers tape, and affix it to the bottom of the lens as a reminder. If you have multiple lenses, just multiply the focal length and/or range of the lens by 1.6 (for your camera) and you'll be fine. It took me awhile to remember the crop factor requirements, and I would end up with motion blurred (not ideal) shots most of the time.
Your camera does have an Auto ISO feature, I believe. If you want to take a little bit of the guesswork out of things, you could turn Auto ISO on, and that will allow it to float up and down based on available light. While it's best to learn how to set ISO properly and learn how shutter speed, aperture and ISO work together, sometimes you just want to get the shot, and there's nothing wrong with letting the camera do a little of the leg work for you. That way, you can focus on what's important: the shutter speed (for motion stopping power), and the aperture (for depth of field control).
Noise is really only noticeable in huge prints, or when people are pixel peeping. At this level, at the size we're posting here, you generally can't see the noise at all, unless you go into the super high ISO ranges of 3200 - 25600. 800 and even 1600 should be fine. The one thing you -will- notice at this size is motion blur. Unintended motion blur is visible even in thumbnail in some cases - so floating your ISO might be the difference between getting the shot, and not.
You've gotten so much advice you might not need another opinion, but one thing you could consider is to analyze the shots you take and see what focal length you use a lot and wish you had for lower light/fast speed and buy a prime at that length. I think you have a cropped sensor so if you are like me, I didn't find my 50 as useful at cropped as I do on my full frame. I wish I had bought the 35 back then. Have fun!
@missalice Actually, as regards final sharpening, big Photoshop, or Elements, will do a much better and more flexible job than Lightroom. Duplicate the base layer, sharpen that with Filter | Sharpen | Unsharp Mask (or Smart Sharpen) and you can back off the sharpening as required by lowering the opacity of the sharpened layer.
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Just a thought to save any expense unless of course you would like a new lens!!!
What sort of budget do you have? A good L series may be worth looking at. In a perfect world, something like the 70-200 would be great, but is a little limited at the wide end, and very expensive. Maybe a 24-105, which is a great lense, has stabilisation and is much cheaper than the 24-70. Good luck!
Lastly, are you doing much processing? You could try a mild unsharp mask if you are using Photoshop, that may make a world of difference.
But I have looked at just a few of your shots, and I think they are really fine as presented. Perhaps you could point out one that you don't feel is sharp enough?
@kiwisnapper @frankhymus I have been using the sharpening slider in the raw processor in PSE (usually to about 70) Would the sharpening tools you suggest be more effective?
I'll have a look at the lenses you suggest, not really sure of my budget, depends what kind of mood the husband is in!!
One image I don't think is sharp enough is the latest one of the family in the woods. The people are just not sharp... So frustrating!
Thank you for your help and suggestions :)
For comparison, your original:
I suggest you open one full size in each tab of your browser and flick between them to compare.
Of course, this is only done on a small JPG as downloaded off your photo, so the image deteriorates very quickly when doing this - I assume you are shooting in RAW? If you were to do an unsharp mask on the RAW, or even a large JPG, you would retain much more quality than this.
Hope this helps.
With a crop sensor like the 70D (and my old 700D) I would suggest starting at a radius of 1.5-2 pixels, and an amount of 150%. For a full frame like my 5D, you can drop the radius down to 0.5 pixels or so - the quality is already better straight out of camera. I don't tend to play with the threshold setting.
These are for the tool in Photoshop - I haven't used PSE so I'm not sure how that tool works. Also, I'm much more into landscapes than portraits, so you just need to have a little play with the settings.
One tip - with full PS, I always merge my photo to a new layer and then sharpen that - that way, if I get it totally wrong, I can just delete the layer and the image is back to full quality.
Have fun!
1. What aperture are you shooting at
2. Are you using centre point focus?
3. What is your shooting style? Are you doing the centre point focus and then focus / recompose?
4. have you tried putting your camera on a tripod and seeing if you need to make microadjustments?
( http://www.ophrysphotography.co.uk/pages/tutoriallensmicroadjustment.htm)
I woudlnt recommend step 4 until we've cancelled issues from the other points
For that image I shot at f5.0 1/100 iso 400. I'm generally shooting in manual so alter my aperture and shutter speed all the time.... I notice that my shutter speed is slow here and that is because it was rather low light in the woods.
I am using centre point focus and recompose (using back button focus). I really struggle choosing specific focal points as I'm usually shooting children so they move too much!! I also don't seem to get good results using AI servo so tend to stick to AF.
Again, because of moving subjects, tripods aren't really an option.
What do you think I could do? X
1/100 is fine for this image if it is a 50mm, and the fact that something is in focus, means its not movement blur.
Can you maybe try sticking your camera on a tripod and try the microadjustment test as in my link in point 4?
Final note... using the 50mm f1.8 on a moving scene is going to be awful... it hunts way too much and takes forever to focus. I cant commen ton the other lens though.
As for the 24-105L, i can vouch that it is a good all purpose lens, however its a F4, so youre not going to get the shallow DoF that youre used to on the f1.8.
1) If you're editing in a photo editor that allows for live histograms, watch the left (shadows) and right (highlights) to see if you can improve on the black-point and white-point respectively. Your white-point was good, but tweaking the black/shadows down a bit gave me richer blacks. Printing the images later, you'll notice an even dramatic difference. What editor are you using?
2) Shoot RAW if you can for the best editing latitude.
3) If you use Lightroom, take a look at the new Dehaze feature. I dialed this up to about +48 (which, on a JPEG file, is totally different than if I were editing with a RAW file) and it cleared things up nicely.
4) Get closer to your subjects, use a telephoto lens, or barring that, crop the photos a little tighter into your subject. Although I love the trees and backdrop in this shot, in the visual hierarchy, your subject should probably be more prominent.
You can take great shots with any equipment. I'd say if you get closer to your subject(s), shoot RAW for more editing breathing room, and fiddle with Lightroom (if that's an available option to you) for post processing, you'll do fine. Yes, expensive lenses do give you more clarity, but clarity doesn't instantly make a great shot.
Lastly, it's super important to learn about reducing handheld shaking by following the one-over-the-focal-length rule. I noticed in your recent photo, it has the following EXIF data:
Camera: Canon EOS 70D
Exposure: 0.01 sec (1/100)
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO Speed: 400
Focal Length: 96 mm
As the 70D is a crop-sensor APS-C with a 1.6x crop factor, in order to freeze handheld shake, your "focal length" isn't 96 mm but 153.6 mm (96 x 1.6). This means that the 1/100th of a second shutter speed was too slow, and with moving subjects, you have motion in the whole frame, plus in your subject. You should be aiming for 1/154 or greater shutter speed at this focal length.
Good news is that your camera does fairly well at higher ISO's, so bumping it up to 800 ISO would give you a full stop, doubling your shutter speed to 1/200th of a second, which is perfect for freezing handheld shake. At that point, unless you're panning the camera with the subject, subject motion blur is fine, as it's probably a little more artistic having the impression of movement in the subject.
Sorry for the huge post...but I did notice you said "Critiques gratefully received!" in the Running Free image, and figured that was a perfect shot to mention the motion freezing rules as they apply to your camera.
Hope this helps!
I'm rubbish with numbers - but i think you're right - i need to get more familiar with thinking about focal length and shutter speed. I feel some research coming on!
I'm always worried about upping my ISO, but perhaps i need to experiment more with higher isos to allow for faster shutter speeds, i currently tend to stay under ISO400.
Huge thanks again for all your advice, I've got so much to learn!
As far as the focal length thing, you could just write the number on a piece of white gaffers tape, and affix it to the bottom of the lens as a reminder. If you have multiple lenses, just multiply the focal length and/or range of the lens by 1.6 (for your camera) and you'll be fine. It took me awhile to remember the crop factor requirements, and I would end up with motion blurred (not ideal) shots most of the time.
Your camera does have an Auto ISO feature, I believe. If you want to take a little bit of the guesswork out of things, you could turn Auto ISO on, and that will allow it to float up and down based on available light. While it's best to learn how to set ISO properly and learn how shutter speed, aperture and ISO work together, sometimes you just want to get the shot, and there's nothing wrong with letting the camera do a little of the leg work for you. That way, you can focus on what's important: the shutter speed (for motion stopping power), and the aperture (for depth of field control).
It looks like, in general, the 70D is fairly happy with ISO 800 and noise starts to creep in around 1600:
http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Canon_EOS_70D/noise.shtml
Noise is really only noticeable in huge prints, or when people are pixel peeping. At this level, at the size we're posting here, you generally can't see the noise at all, unless you go into the super high ISO ranges of 3200 - 25600. 800 and even 1600 should be fine. The one thing you -will- notice at this size is motion blur. Unintended motion blur is visible even in thumbnail in some cases - so floating your ISO might be the difference between getting the shot, and not.