My new 85mm 1.8! *img heavy-ish*

[mrsmacdeezy]

I've been waiting about two weeks for my 85mm 1.8 to come in and it FINALLY came this past Friday! I was sick, so didn't get a chance to go out and play with it until Sunday when the hubby took me to Seattle and Pike's Market.

I was a little frustrated when I got back home and saw some of my pics came out a bit softer than what I wanted. After doing a bit of reading online I think they came out this way because my f-stop was too low in general? I shot raw, and there was no PP done except a bit of cropping here and there.

I'm not really interested in PP advice, because I will do that later. I am looking for advice on what could have been done to get the best image possible out of my camera, and feel like I can get the best advice if people know what it looked like without pp. I know I can get much more out of this lens! Thanks in advance! :hug::

OH one more thing. I am including my exif data, but on my computer it doesn't show my ISO so I guessed from memory.

1.

FNumber: 4.5
Exposure time: 1/250
ISO: 200

2.

FNumber: 4.5
Exposure time: 1/250
ISO: 200

3.

I was REALLY disappointed that this came out soft, because if the focus was there I think this probably would have been my fav. of the day. It looked good on the lcd screen:er:
FNumber: 2.5
Exposure time: 1/30
ISO: 100

4.

My hubby being so generous as to pose for me:mrgreen:
FNumber: 1.8
Exposure time: 1/200
ISO: 100

5.

FNumber: 4.5
Exposure time: 1/320
ISO: 200

6.

This would have been another of my fav. pics of the day if it had come out sharper!
FNumber: 4.5
Exposure time: 1/40
ISO: 200

Thanks for looking

 

[Josh220]

Looks like most, if not all of the shots missed the focus. Were you manually focusing or on auto focus? What body were you shooting with?

It looked good on the lcd screen:er:

The LCD lies. You have to zoom it in if you want to see whether it's sharp or not. Everything looks great on a 3" screen.

 

[mrsmacdeezy]

As I stated in my post, I was disappointed that the focus was soft in most of the pics I took that day, and this is my main reason for asking for suggestions I actually played around with both the manual and auto-focus. I'm pretty sure that is not the issue because I have had my Rebel Xsi for a year now and I have learned how to manipulate the focus and didn't have this problem with my kit lens, or at least not in a long time. This is why I think it has something to do with my new lens, and me needing to learn how to adjust the levels to get the best out of it.

 

[enzodm]

Consider that at f/2.5, 5 meters of distance, you have about 30cm of DOF. Not easy to focus, nor to have in focus a whole person (chose focus point carefully). Also, if it is not stabilized, in theory you have to shoot at at least 1/170 (=85x2) to avoid blurring from movement (yours or of the subject).

 

[Derrel]

The woman in the red outfit...that was shot at f/2.5 at 1/30 second...you have very little depth of field at f/2.5 at that distance AND the shutter speed is too slow to hand-hold with sureness....same with the man playing the stringed instrument--he is suffering from subject motion blurring. Welcome to the world of telephoto lens photography! it is demanding; it demands accurate focusing, accurate placement of the DOF band, and steady camera work. It will help to practice your technique. Many shots, most in fact, look pretty good on the LCD screen. Boosting your ISO from 200 to 640 or 800 would have improved the sharpness of your images, by giving you faster shutter speeds.

 

[mrsmacdeezy]

Thanks so much for the informative responses! It's great to know some things to change the next time I go out. I'm still very excited about this lens and I'm hoping soon I can start doing it some justice, if you know what I mean

 

[Derrel]

Thanks so much for the informative responses! It's great to know some things to change the next time I go out. I'm still very excited about this lens and I'm hoping soon I can start doing it some justice, if you know what I mean

You know, one of the things about d-slr photography is that we can expand the pictures on our computers and really SEE the technical flaws, which is a good and bad thing. A LOT of pictures have slight blurring, due to shutter speeds that are a bit too slow, or focus that is not "quite"perfect. And with today's higher and higher MP d-slr models, it's gotten to the point where the photographer's technique, and even the camera's shutter vibration, or mirror bounce, can show up in photos. A slight bit of wind, a cheap tripod, a careless press of the shutter release, etc.--any of those things can show up as flaws in today's high-rez d-slr captures.

A good rule of thumb is a shutter speed that is the reciprocal of the focal length, so with an 85mm lens, that means a speed of 1/80 or so is needed,at the minimum, for safety. Many people feel that double the focal length makes more sense, meaning 1/160 for an 85mm would be the slowest hand-held speed.

But you know what? I think something more like 1/350 to 1/400 second is where "sharp" photos really start to happen...when using a telephoto lens.
So...keep a good eye on the shutter speeds!

 

[pbelarge]

I am curious...do you remember where your focus point was when shooting these?

 

[Aayria]

Congratulations on the lens, it's a great choice!

I agree with the comments posted so far, and look forward to seeing more from you =)

 

[Blake.Oney]

Quite a while back after a maternity shoot where I lost half of the photo's I had taken due to my movement and using a lens without VR I started ALWAYS checking shutter speed, and I never use a shutter speed lower than the focal length, unless I'm using a lens with VR.

 

[vtf]

You shot RAW and did no editing is the first mistake. Raw images look like crap out of the camera because of all untouched information they contain. Once you saved to jpeg to post here the issues were pernamently imbeded. You need to go back to your RAW image and correct WB, color, sharpening, vibrance etc. before posting. Try that and see if the images improve. :thumbup:

 

[KillerKowalski]

Well, the "sharpest" aperture you used was f/4.5.

 

[ghache]

Quite a while back after a maternity shoot where I lost half of the photo's I had taken due to my movement and using a lens without VR I started ALWAYS checking shutter speed, and I never use a shutter speed lower than the focal length, unless I'm using a lens with VR.

that tricks is well known to be a safe setting when using a lens without vr....
i rarely go under 1/50th with my 50mm...

im not sure but i think VR gets your 4 stop of margin

 

[tirediron]

The main issue here is that you're simply not familiar enough with just how shallow your DoF is using this lens at wider apertures. Let's assume a camera to subject distance of 10'. At f4.5, your DoF is only about 4 3/8". Shooting wide open, it's more like 2 3/4"! NOT a lot of room with which to work.

If I may suggest, check out a depth of field table, such as this on-line version here and become more aware of just how little wiggle room you have. It might even be worth printing off a set of tables for this lens and referring back to them before each shot until you're a little more used to it.

 

[shaunly]

85mm on a 1.6x crop sensor is like a 136mm on FF. At that range, you really need fast shutter speed to get sharp images handheld. Also, did you use the center focus point locked, then recomposed? This technique can cause miss focus point because of the ultra shallow DOF.