What's my problem??

Overread · Aug 14, 2008

monopod or a cheap £10/$20 tripod will do you!
The cheap ones are light and tend to have all the legs secured to the centre pole vial a sliding bracket - means you can open all legs at once - the lose screws mean you can do it quick with a single finger - good for quicker shooting - though you won't leave a camera on one freestanding

Dmitri · Aug 14, 2008

Overread said:
monopod or a cheap £10/$20 tripod will do you!
The cheap ones are light and tend to have all the legs secured to the centre pole vial a sliding bracket - means you can open all legs at once - the lose screws mean you can do it quick with a single finger - good for quicker shooting - though you won't leave a camera on one freestanding

I tried the monopod today and I kind of liked it once I got used to it. It didn't have a release thing, but still was nice.

That said, I'm pretty sure now that it's a camera problem (maybe in addition to shakes) because there was a stalk from a plant against far away background, so I tested a little and sure enough - even with the dot right in the middle, sometimes the focus would go to the background. I'll find a store by me and bring it in, get it checked out. The camera only a couple months old so should still be under warrenty if its a problem.

Thanks again to everyone for the help.

Montana · Aug 14, 2008

I would have shot in one shot mode. I find AI-servo hit and miss.

Chris71 · Aug 15, 2008

Montana said:
I would have shot in one shot mode. I find AI-servo hit and miss.

I agree with this. If you look in the tree to the right, the branches sticking out, are in focus. Use one shot focus, put it on the eyes, and click.

cfingram · Aug 15, 2008

My Canon XT doesn't handle high ISO really well, anything higher then 400 and you get lots of noise. I usually use noiseware to correct the problem.

However, like everyone said above, I believe it to be a focus problem

manaheim · Aug 15, 2008

Dmitri said:
I tried the monopod today and I kind of liked it once I got used to it. It didn't have a release thing, but still was nice.

That said, I'm pretty sure now that it's a camera problem (maybe in addition to shakes) because there was a stalk from a plant against far away background, so I tested a little and sure enough - even with the dot right in the middle, sometimes the focus would go to the background. I'll find a store by me and bring it in, get it checked out. The camera only a couple months old so should still be under warrenty if its a problem.

Thanks again to everyone for the help.

You may want to make some test shots of some more easy to focus on subjects, such as a car, the side of a brick building, etc. Good things to also try are road and informational signs (so you can check sharpness of text). If you tried to take a picture of a stick and the thing got confused it may have just missed and hit something behind it.

Dmitri · Aug 16, 2008

Gotcha all. AI Servo Focus is.. for the birds! (sorry

And yeah, I will definitely do some tests and see. I went and got some shots yesterday and they seemed to come out a bit better, tho none of them were in shadow.

Thanks again, all.

manaheim · Aug 16, 2008

Dmitri said:
Gotcha all. AI Servo Focus is.. for the birds! (sorry

And yeah, I will definitely do some tests and see. I went and got some shots yesterday and they seemed to come out a bit better, tho none of them were in shadow.

Thanks again, all.

Let us know what you come up with. I AGONIZED over this a while. I was convinced my D300 was broken. I finally brought it in for service, as it needed a good cleaning anyway, and I asked them. They looked at me like I had 6 heads and told me the focus was spot-on.

Some tips they told me...

- Less light means it'll be less easy to focus on.
- Beyond a certain range, the camera is less likely to get the focus sharp by itself, and you need to kick into manual mode.
- Infinity focusing tends to get objects in the foreground a bit off, try hyperfocal focusing to correct.

Remember, too, that different cameras use different methods, and understanding HOW your camera focuses helps you understand situations where it may get confused and be unable to get it dead on.

Good luck! :thumbup:

laurentharari · Aug 21, 2008

Agree with tiredon it looks like you simply have a focus problem. the leaves at the right side of the animals seems focused . Set the autofocus on the single centered zone setting and shoot . If you need to do composition leave your finger half pressed on the shutter, compose your image and shoot. Best Laurent

Dmitri · Sep 4, 2008

I think I discovered my problem... While all above things certainly play a role, today (in a forehead slapping moment) I realized that my main problem, and the reason they sometimes come out crystal clear, and sometimes blurred is because I move the camera when I press the shutter....

yes I know what you are all thinking, "noob!" and yes I am. I have to get into the habit of squeezing the shutter, rather than clicking it. I know about, and do, the half press thing but didn't occur to me the squeezing would give a small shake.

Soooo now to work on that. Thanks to everyone who offered the help, it certainly will

manaheim · Sep 4, 2008

...how does one "squeeze" a shutter release? :lol:

Dmitri · Sep 4, 2008

manaheim said:
...how does one "squeeze" a shutter release?

Like a trigger, I guess

manaheim · Sep 4, 2008

Dmitri said:
Like a trigger, I guess

Damn that's one scary camera you got there... does it take 9mm bullets?

chris · Sep 5, 2008

The 1/focal length rule is only a guide line and I believe it was originally for 35mm cameras, so probably you should be using 1/1.5 x focal length. The shutter speed from this rule is the minimum that will give acceptable sharpness for the majority of people and acceptable is not necessarily the maximum that the lens can deliver. Also, the rule was formulated when the majority of 35 mm cameras used 50 mm lenses and focal lengths in excess of about 100 mm were rare - you can't necessarily just keep extrapolating the results.

To ensure that you get really sharp images then you should try using much shorter shutter speeds, use a tripod, monopod or other support or improve your camera holding and shooting technique.

Some can hand hold at significantly lower shutter speeds than others and still get sharp images. Try taking a scene using your camera on a support with mirror lock-up (if you have it), remote release/timer etc to minimise vibration and then photograph the same scene handheld at various shutter speeds, then you can work out what shutter speed you can use handheld and still get acceptable results.

There seem to be a lot of people around here who think that as long as they use 1/focal length they will get super sharp images - it doesn't necessarily work that way.