Granddaughter

[edsland]

just a quick shot of my granddaughter the morning before they flew back to South Carolina

 

[BasilFawlty]

Cute! Nice shot.

 

[smoke665]

What a sweetheart!!!!

 

[BasilFawlty]

It's a great picture and, she's cute as a button. Upon closer look, when I zoom in, it seems that the focus was on the brim of her hat and not her eyes. When you click on the image and zoom in, the eyes seem (to me) to be slightly out of focus. Did you manually select the focus, or did the camera pick the focus point? Still a nice picture.

 

[edsland]

It's a great picture and, she's cute as a button. Upon closer look, when I zoom in, it seems that the focus was on the brim of her hat and not her eyes. When you click on the image and zoom in, the eyes seem (to me) to be slightly out of focus. Did you manually select the focus, or did the camera pick the focus point? Still a nice picture.

I use single point center focus point try and focus on eyes then recompose

 

[jcdeboever]

Adorable

 

[BasilFawlty]

I use single point center focus point try and focus on eyes then recompose

Sounds like you did it right. It looks like you were using a fairly shallow depth of field (guessing f2.8 or f4 maybe?). One thing I learned when doing a "focus and recompose" is that, especially when you are using a wide aperture (shallow DOF), when you do the recompose after the focus, you have to be very careful about staying exactly parallel to your original focal plane. Otherwise, the original focus point (the eye in this case) can end up slightly closer or further from the original focus distance when you recompose. This can also happen if your subject moves slightly while you are recomposing. This can be tricky, especially when you have a very shallow depth of field. The more shallow the DOF is, the more unforgiving the focus point is with small changes in movement of either the camera or the subject. It can be frustrating I know.

For what it's worth (probably not much) one little trick I learned in a course I once took, is, when recomposing, be sure to move left/ right or up/down in exactly the same plane. If you twist the camera at all either left or right or up/down, then you will be changing the distance to your original focus point. At shallow DOF, even a very slight change in distance-to-focus point can throw off your focus.


That said, it's still a cute picture and the focus issue isn't really noticeable at normal viewing distance.

 

[edsland]

I use single point center focus point try and focus on eyes then recompose

Sounds like you did it right. It looks like you were using a fairly shallow depth of field (guessing f2.8 or f4 maybe?). One thing I learned when doing a "focus and recompose" is that, especially when you are using a wide aperture (shallow DOF), when you do the recompose after the focus, you have to be very careful about staying exactly parallel to your original focal plane. Otherwise, the original focus point (the eye in this case) can end up slightly closer or further from the original focus distance when you recompose. This can also happen if your subject moves slightly while you are recomposing. This can be tricky, especially when you have a very shallow depth of field. The more shallow the DOF is, the more unforgiving the focus point is with small changes in movement of either the camera or the subject. It can be frustrating I know.

For what it's worth (probably not much) one little trick I learned in a course I once took, is, when recomposing, be sure to move left/ right or up/down in exactly the same plane. If you twist the camera at all either left or right or up/down, then you will be changing the distance to your original focus point. At shallow DOF, even a very slight change in distance-to-focus point can throw off your focus.


That said, it's still a cute picture and the focus issue isn't really noticeable at normal viewing distance.

Good to know, thanks for the tips, I'm sure i moved a little as Morgan did. But like you said my wife prints most our pictures 4/6 for her scrapbooks so it isn't very noticeable.

 

[vintagesnaps]

She's cute as can be!

If I focus and reframe I usually double check/adjust the focus slightly as needed before I take the picture. I agree, a really shallow depth of field can make it more tricky to nail focus - especially with young busy active kids!

I'm sure with a 4x6 print it won't be noticeable, and probably a somewhat smaller aperture might help in the future.

 

[BasilFawlty]

If anyone is interested, here is a DOF calculator you can use to see what the DOF will be at various focal lengths, f-stops and distance to subject: Online Depth of Field Calculator (There are also many apps you can get)

In looking at your picture in Lightroom, I see you were at around 65mm with an f-stop of f2.8. According to that DOF calculator the depth of field (assuming you were about 4ft from subject) was less that 1-1/2 inches which would not be very forgiving for small changes in Distance to subject. If you really want a challenge, try using an 85mm f1.2 lens where the DOF is paper thin.

 

[edsland]

If anyone is interested, here is a DOF calculator you can use to see what the DOF will be at various focal lengths, f-stops and distance to subject: Online Depth of Field Calculator (There are also many apps you can get)

In looking at your picture in Lightroom, I see you were at around 65mm with an f-stop of f2.8. According to that DOF calculator the depth of field (assuming you were about 4ft from subject) was less that 1-1/2 inches which would not be very forgiving for small changes in Distance to subject. If you really want a challenge, try using an 85mm f1.2 lens where the DOF is paper thin.

Thanks for the online calculator DOF really interesting.