Family photos gone bad...

otherprof · Oct 31, 2016

Tgoodwater2002 said:
So if I moved the aperture to 8.0 it would automatically slow the shutter speed? Is this around what professionals keep the aperture at to get those crisp photos of groups of people?

By all means follow Trevor's advice. A really short fix is this: the larger the f-stop number, the larger the depth of field. Depth of field is how much will be in focus from the closest focused item to the farthest item in focus. So going from, say, f2.8 to f8 will increase the depth of field, and probably solve the focus problem. Also, unless you are in full manual mode, making the opening smaller (increasing the f number) will be compensated for by the camera by making the exposure longer - or increasing the iso.

KmH · Oct 31, 2016

otherprof said:
making the opening smaller (increasing the f number)

F-numbers are fractions, so f/2 is a bigger number, and a larger lens aperture, than f/8 is.
Put another way, making the opening smaller requires decreasing the f-number.

Lens aperture is only 1 of several factors that control depth-of-field (DoF).
Lens focal length and point of focus distance have more effect on DoF than lens aperture does.
Image sensor size is also a DoF factor.

vintagesnaps · Oct 31, 2016

It's not just using a calculator, I've never used anything like that. You need to learn more about how your camera works, and how to make adjustments in aperture and shutter speed that work in a variety of settings and with various subjects in various lighting conditions.

Good idea to back up the bus and go learn how to use the camera well. And practice a lot. And later on maybe you'd be good enough at it to do shoots for other people. (And people will apparently take just about any pictures they get for free by talking somebody with a camera into doing it, lol - and it seems you can't go just by friends & family who might just be trying to be nice and supportive.)

Tgoodwater2002 · Nov 1, 2016

vintagesnaps said:
It's not just using a calculator, I've never used anything like that. You need to learn more about how your camera works, and how to make adjustments in aperture and shutter speed that work in a variety of settings and with various subjects in various lighting conditions.

Good idea to back up the bus and go learn how to use the camera well. And practice a lot. And later on maybe you'd be good enough at it to do shoots for other people. (And people will apparently take just about any pictures they get for free by talking somebody with a camera into doing it, lol - and it seems you can't go just by friends & family who might just be trying to be nice and supportive.)

I definitely am going to practice more and learn how my camera works in manual mode. Experiment and practice practice practice! I have also never charged anyone for the pictures I've taken. I've told everyone that I am just starting out and asked them if they would like me to take their family pictures. So they all know I'm an amateur using our new camera we got...

. So the more people I can take pictures of the better I will get right? I am having fun and determined to master this camera and its settings to take gorgeous pictures!!

KmH · Nov 1, 2016

The in-the-camera light meter is only capable of metering reflected light.
To consistently make high quality shots of people we need to meter not only reflected light, wew also need to meter incident light and strobed (flash) light too.

The only way we can meter incident and flash is to use a hand held light meter.
Sekonic L-308S Flashmate Digital Incident, Reflected & Flash Light Meter