Is it out of focus or a dirty lens?

kstreff3 · Jul 1, 2014

Hi. I'm new here and a beginner. I love taking pictures of my family but they never seem in focus and I am never able to enlarge them because they look so cloudy. Am I not focusing right, or could it be a dirty lens?

480sparky · Jul 1, 2014

Checking for a dirty lens should be painfully easy and simple. All you need to do is look through it.

tirediron · Jul 1, 2014

Nothing dirty, but very out of focus! It looks like the point of focus was the grass in the foreground.

TCampbell · Jul 2, 2014

It's out of focus. I can see some grass blades nearer to the camera which look sharper.

Unless you smear something across your lens (we used to deliberately smear Vaseline petroleum jelly around the sides of a clear UV filter (leaving the middle uncoated) to create a misty-fog effect -- but smears look a bit different (they create a misty/dreamy look). Dirt itself won't show up -- the camera can focus on anything directly on front of the lens.

petrochemist · Jul 2, 2014

A dirty lens will generally reduce contrast rather than make a image blurry. (Water droplets or similar would distort the focus/image though).
Try selecting a focus point at one of the important areas rather than letting the camera choose. If that doesn't fix it, investigate focus calibration options -Many cameras have a focus adjustment setting to cope with changes of rear focal distance from manufacturing tolerances (some allow lens by lens focus calibration).

petrochemist · Jul 2, 2014

TCampbell said:
<snip> the camera can focus on anything directly on front of the lens.

I think Tim meant to write 'can't'!

Braineack · Jul 2, 2014

kstreff3 said:
Hi. I'm new here and a beginner. I love taking pictures of my family but they never seem in focus and I am never able to enlarge them because they look so cloudy. Am I not focusing right, or could it be a dirty lens?

missed focus. make sure you have autofocus even turned on...

what are you shooting with, and what method of focus are you using?

Mashburn · Jul 2, 2014

What is your Apeture set at?

I had a similar problem. I was shooting at f/1.8 and I would point my focal point on a face, then press it half way down and let it focus and then wait just a hair of a second (breathing). and I came out with shoots like this. It was because I focused where I wanted. then because I had it held at half press, I was slightly moving back or forward. and that made it focus behind or in front of them.
So to fix my problem, I learned to half press and let it focus and then take the picture. and if it still happened, then I would just increase my aperture.

paigew · Jul 2, 2014

yep missed focus on that one

Are you picking your own focus point? Or are you letting the camera select it for you? What is your aperture set to?

Dao · Jul 3, 2014

Camera Maker: Canon
Camera Model: Canon EOS REBEL T1i
Lens: EF-S55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS
Image Date: 2014-06-23
Focal Length: 55mm
Focus Distance: 4.12m
Aperture: f/4.0
Exposure Time: 0.013 s (1/80)
ISO equiv: 200
Exposure Bias: none
Metering Mode: Matrix
Exposure: aperture priority (semi-auto)
White Balance: Manual
Flash Fired: No (enforced)
Orientation: Normal
Color Space: sRGB
GPS Coordinate: undefined, undefined
Software: Aperture 3.5.1

robbins.photo · Jul 3, 2014

kstreff3 said:
Hi. I'm new here and a beginner. I love taking pictures of my family but they never seem in focus and I am never able to enlarge them because they look so cloudy. Am I not focusing right, or could it be a dirty lens?

Greetings KStreff - as the others have mentioned it looks like the focus point here was missed. In general when taking pictures of people I find my best results are to setup the camera so it allows me to select the focus point rather than allowing the camera to make it's best guess as to what the subject should be - generally you'll want to put the focus point over the eye of the subject because that's what people will naturally look at first and so that's really what you want your point of focus to be for best results.

If your shooting more than one subject (like the three boys), it's often a good idea to stop down the lens a bit and get a little more depth of field so that all of them will be in nice, sharp focus. Also in this particular image I think part of the problem might be that it looks like you were dealing with some pretty harsh lighting.