Focus Problems

[nlb2282]

Hi Everyone,

I've been trying to get better at taking portraits of my daughter, but seem to be having a problem getting the focus right. I am focusing on one of her eyes when taking the picture and they turn out pretty good, but most of the shots seem to be slightly out of focus. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

EXIF
50mm
f2.8
1/250

 

[fiveoboy01]

Since you are shooting wide open(largest possible aperture), your depth of field may be so narrow that some parts of the photo will be out of focus. I can't view the picture where I'm at though so I can't comment anymore than that.

Try stopping the lens down a bit, something like f4-f6 and see if that helps. Pay attention to the shutter speed, you may have to boost the ISO. If you have a steady hand, you should be able to handhold all the way down to 1/60, even at tad more without blur caused by camera shake.

 

[Samanax]

This image doesn't look that bad to me. I see you have a XTi...did you shoot this in JPEG or RAW?

How much photo editing do you do to your images?

I have a XTi and the EF 50mm f/1.8 II and didn't like the way my photos were coming out when I was shooting in JPEG (they always looked soft). My friends encouraged me to shoot in RAW and it made quite a big difference in the way the final image came out (much more detail, better color and contrast and sharper too) so now I only shoot in RAW. Sure I gotta spend more time during the photo editing process but it's worth it.

 

[nlb2282]

This picture was taken in JPEG and lightened up a bit in PS. Other than that I didn't do any other editing.

I know the picture isn't that badly out of focus, it just frustrates me because it seems like all of my pictures turn out this way...pretty much in focus but not quite. I'll try shooting in RAW and see if that makes a difference.