camera shake??

sbakewell0508 · May 25, 2011

ok so i second shot a wedding last weekend and some of my pictures, I am just kinda puzzled about... i followed the focal length rule (with 5mm) and used my light meter suggestions using manual mode as well as using af-s single point on my camera. these portraits are 100% crops of the picture.. these are "fine" when not zoomed in to 100%, but once zoomed in they break down.. what I also dont understand is its not all of my images. so I just dont know whats going on..i had this issue a few weeks ago with my 50 mm and people said it was a combination of the limitation of my lens as well as not using flash in a low light area. this time i used a different lens and there was not a need for flash as it is was gorgeous overcast day.. i took a family session a few weeks ago using my 105mm macro and most my images were tack sharp can someone let me know what they think?

shooting with d90

for the the eye ones i of course of course focused on the eyes, the middle one she was far away from me, so her whole body was focused. is this camera shake?? i also got similar results on my 70-300 lens, but its not as bad (i attribute that to camera shake but not 100% for sure)

i also took my camera to local camera shop to see if my sensor needed cleaning but nope it was fine.

SJM_433 by 05miller08, on Flickr
exif: #1
5.6
100 shutter
iso 200
no flash
18-105 lens at 105

SJM_217 by 05miller08, on Flickr
#2
5.6
100 shutter
iso 200
18-105 lens at 105

image 1 by 05miller08, on Flickr

#3
5.6
100 shutter
iso 200
no flash
18-105 at 105

chaosrealm93 · May 25, 2011

yea, possibly camera shake. i think 1/100 might be a bit slow for weddings.

mrpink · May 25, 2011

1. camera shake.

2. missed focus.

3. looks good for 100% crop.

Your camera is fine. Get a tripod for formal portraits.

p!nK

sbakewell0508 · May 25, 2011

i do have a tripod and i would of used it but the main photographer was not using one and i was just following her lead.. i believe in using a tripod as much as i can... even thinking about getting a monopod for on the go would help stabilize me more.

when you say missed focus..i put focus on the eyes..
gonna need to watch my shutter speed i was focusing on exposure and and my aperature 5.6 it was saying that was the proper shutter speed.. bumping up my iso would of helped my shutter speed.

you say looks good for 100% crop?! these dont look good to me... what % do use when editing what view? i do 100% but someone told me before that was not needed.

Gaerek · May 25, 2011

You say you have a D90. That's a cropped frame sensor. You have to take into consideration the 35mm equivalent focal length. In other words, at 105mm you're effectively at about 158mm in 35mm equivalent. You'd be much better off at 1/160 or even 1/200.

onesickpuppy · May 25, 2011

While I agree with a lot of what was said above....providing I could see the rest of the photo

One area no one has touched on including the OP.....is what type of focus selection you were using.......

Single shot....or continuous focus

Makes a big difference if you were accidentally on single shot focus and either recomposed or didn't catch it and subject moved from
original point you depressed the shutter button to focus.

Because your only showing a small portion of the original images....its hard to truely get a feel for giving a accurate answer

Camera shake....possible....if your technique is really sloppy
Missed focus....see above and maybe your focal point moved

Need more to see to zero in on a real answer

sbakewell0508 · May 25, 2011

i never thought about the crop sensor being an issue with the focal lenght rule.. darn cropped sensor lol.. is there a calculation that i can do to determine what my focal length actually is??

also i was on single point focus.. and did not recompose i half press the shutter focus and take picture all within like a second.. i make sure to wait for the focus to lock in... do you think that af-c (continuous) focus would be better even when selecting a focus point?

sbakewell0508 · May 25, 2011

for those that mentioned the crop sensor is this even true on the dx lens? the 18-105 that came with my camera shouldn't that be the true focal length?

seekinglight · May 25, 2011

You need to apply the comments to the proper image as numbered. The first picture suffered from camera shake -everything is blurred. The second image is the one where you missed focus -the background is sharper than the subject. The third image is the one that looks good for 100%.

Interesting that all three photos are at 105mm using a mediocre and slow lens (f5.6 at 105mm). You have a very good 105mm lens that is much faster (f2.8). Use that one for available light, use the other when you have a flash to provide both light and focus assist. The lens will focus at it's maximum aperture -so even if you stop down the 105mm lens to f5.6, it will focus better and faster in low light.

sbakewell0508 · May 25, 2011

@seeking light... thanks for the clarification... i used the 18-105 even though its slow, it was very bright this day and thought it would be ok..

is it correct to say that i could of bumped my iso up to 400, and then used a shutter speed of at least 200 to get correct exposure and hopefully eliminated this problem... like i posted above not all my pictures came out blurry just random ones.

oh and @seekinglight i love your signature...dont wait for someone to hire you... i need to do that more often!

sbakewell0508 · May 25, 2011

lol i just told my fiance about the "if you want to do something start doing it dont wait for someone to hire you" from seeking light he laughed and said i am not bailing you of out jail after you just start randomly showing up and shooting peoples weddings lol

Gaerek · May 25, 2011

Ok let me try to explain the crop factor and what it means. A 100mm lens is always a 100mm lens, no matter what sensor is behind it. However, a cropped sensor will have a narrower field of view than a full frame (35mm) sensor. In essence, it will appear zoomed in when compared to a larger sensor.

So why does this happen? A lens will always throw the same image circle regardless of sensor. But a larger sensor will take a larger bite of that circle than a smaller one. Hence the reason the cropped sensor appears zoomed in compared to the full frame. I'm on my phone and don't feel like finding it, but there are some great illustrations of this all over the Internet.

Now, with regards to the focal length = shutter speed rule. This rule only applies to full frame sensors or 35mm film. Why is this? Actually, the reason is pure chance. It just so happened that in full frame, using that rule of thumb will help you get images without camera shake. Since it only applies to full frame, you have to apply your sensors crop factor in order to use this rule. This means with a 100mm lens on a Canon (1.6x) and Nikon (1.5x) you should use a shutter speed of at least 1/160 to ensure minimal camera shake. Now that that is clear as mud, we can move along, lol.

sbakewell0508 · May 25, 2011

so in low light situations when sometimes you need to shoot at 60 a second with an 800 iso (was the case on this day) and i was using a 1.8 lens the best scenario is to make sure to brace use tri/monopod if possible??

so do you take the lens range and times it by 1.5 to get the crop factor?