Feedback requested

NC Labman · May 20, 2009

Took this picture recently and I like it, but it still is missing something. The focus is soft and I think the depth of field is too shallow. How would you have changed composition and/or camera settings? Equipment is Canon 40D with 28-135 lens. Hoping to invest in some new glass soon.

mxracer32 · May 20, 2009

what was your aperture set at?

Sherman Banks · May 20, 2009

f14? You've spotted the obvious issues, compositionally I don't see anything wrong with it. Maybe some more space to the right side of the frame but I like her offset placement. Is that a diffused flash firing from your upper left? If so, you probably could have tried to use a reflector to help smooth some of the shadows on the right side her face. Nice shot though, shame about the focus.

NC Labman · May 20, 2009

I will need to check the aperture, but F4 sounds correct. I'm still new to using an SLR and the biggest issue I keep facing is that when shooting my children there always seems to be such a brief window to get the shot that my finger fires faster than my brain can work and this is the result. I'm hoping time and experience will correct the issue.

There was no flash used in the photo.

Sherman Banks · May 20, 2009

Well good use of natural lighting! Your exif says you were at f14, not f4, but the depth of field does look more shallow than F14 would get you on most cases.

rmh159 · May 20, 2009

I don't think there's a lot wrong with it to be honest. I think the reason you might feel it's missing something is that you seem to have 2 competing subjects with the girl and the frog. I think my eye is pulled to the girl because she's cute and takes up more of the frame and then to the frog because he's more in focus.

I wonder if you cropped more of her out of the frame or blurred her heavier it'd draw more attention to the frog and isolate it as the subject.

Just using the browser to slide the pic up and off the screen I "cropped" it just at her hair line and I think it looks a bit better. Takes away some of the bright background and brings the frog more into the frame. As long as you leave her eyes in frame I'd think you'd be safe to remove some of her.

MelodySoul · May 20, 2009

The problem for me is that either the girl should be totally out of focus (very shallow depth of field with only the hand and frog sharp) or have her totally in focus with just the background out of focus.

NC Labman · May 20, 2009

Ignorance confession time. I can check my aperture at home when I have my Canon software on my PC (at work right now). How are you seeing the camera settings and what is exif?

Sherman Banks · May 20, 2009

NC Labman said:
Ignorance confession time. I can check my aperture at home when I have my Canon software on my PC (at work right now). How are you seeing the camera settings and what is exif?

Here is what EXIF data is. There are programs such as Opanda that let you check the EXIF data on a photo by right clicking on it.

JayPhotography · May 20, 2009

Exif data is all the information on how the picture was taken. It contains settings such as aperture, shutter speed, iso and such.

To see it on windows, you must right-click a photo and go to properties. From there, go to the second tab and click the button that says "Advanced" below (These might not be the exact names for the buttons, since I run windows in spanish heh). There's your exif.

Cute girl by the way

NC Labman · May 21, 2009

She looks like her mother (thank God). Back to the original question the depth of field does seem shallow to me for an aperture of 14. Could this indicate that I had the focus point off? What else would result in such a shallow depth of field for an aperture this small?

Samanax · May 21, 2009

NC Labman said:
She looks like her mother (thank God). Back to the original question the depth of field does seem shallow to me for an aperture of 14. Could this indicate that I had the focus point off? What else would result in such a shallow depth of field for an aperture this small?

There are several factors that have a direct impact on DOF...aperture size, focal length, distance from camera to subject and distance between subject and background. Looks like the focal length was 53mm and you were pretty close to the subject (the frog). If you had shot this at 28mm the results would have been different. Longer focal lengths have shallower DOF. Shorter, wider focal lengths have deeper DOF.

For your next lens you might want to get the EF 50mm f/1.8 II "Nifty Fifty".