Need help with "blurred" pictures +EXIF DATA/PHOTO

[faceyournation]

Hey everyone,

You may have seen my recent post about this, here is the exif data w/ images (images were converted to jpeg, assigned sRGB color profile, and reduced using bi-cubic sharper (for reduction). Wondering why my images are coming out "blurry" and lacking that professional sense of sharpness..

1. In this picture, it's noticeable that the headlights look blurred but the rest of the car seems to be in exceptional focus.

Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: EF50mm F/1.8 II
Max aperture value: f/1.8
No Flash
White Balance: Auto
Camera: Canon EOS REBEL T2i

2. Same thing in this picture..

Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: EF50mm F/1.8 II
Max aperture value: f/1.8
No Flash
White Balance: Auto
Camera: Canon EOS REBEL T2i

Thanks again for all the help everyone!

 

[gsgary]

Not sure what you expect shooting at F1.8 and 1/1600 you couldn't have had much worse settings, you could have shot it at F8 and 1/125 and it would have been much sharper

 

[Geaux]

You shot it in 1.8. That's your issue.

 

[faceyournation]

Not sure what you expect shooting at F1.8 and 1/1600 you couldn't have had much worse settings, you could have shot it at F8 and 1/125 and it would have been much sharper

I'm sorry, these ones were shot around 1/600? It's not listed in my metadata so not exactly sure but sorry about that, I'm a noob! Gonna re-shoot with all your recommended settings today or tomorrow and we'll see how it goes..

 

[faceyournation]

You shot it in 1.8. That's your issue.

I had a feeling it may be this..

 

[gsgary]

Not sure what you expect shooting at F1.8 and 1/1600 you couldn't have had much worse settings, you could have shot it at F8 and 1/125 and it would have been much sharper

I'm sorry, these ones were shot around 1/600? It's not listed in my metadata so not exactly sure but sorry about that, I'm a noob! Gonna re-shoot with all your recommended settings today or tomorrow and we'll see how it goes..

Second shot was 1/1600

 

[gsgary]

Those settings i gave you were only based on the settings you shot the second shot at, i just worked out how many stops you could lower your shutter speed and then added the stops onto your aperture to give a similar exposure

 

[Big Mike]

Thank you for including the photo and information with your question. It would be so much easier if everyone did this.

Your problem is very probably that your DOF is too shallow, and also that your lens (like most lenses) isn't at it's best when used 'wide open' (at it's largest aperture).

Lets calculate the DOF you have going on here.
For your first shot, I assumed a focus distance of 10 feet. So with your camera, at 50mm and F1.8, your DOF is 0.81 feet. That means that everything that is 9.61 feet away, to 10.4 feet away, will be in focus. Anything that is outside of that range, will be out of focus. So if you focused on anything besides the headlights, they probably won't be inside your DOF.
If you stop the lens all the way down to F16, you still only have 8.41 feet of DOF, so probably not enough to get the whole car in focus.
To make your DOF deeper, you could continue to stop down the lens, or you could back up, or you could use a shorter focal length lens.

In your second shot, I guessed a distance of 30 feet. At which, you would have a DOF of 7.5 feet when shooting at F1.8. That should be enough for what you can see of the car, but the focus has to be right on the car. (It wouldn't be unheard of if your lens/camera had a bit of front or back focusing).

So as you can see, there are plenty of factors going on here.
For shooting still subjects like this, I'd recommend that you use a good sturdy tripod, which will allow you to shoot at any shutter speed, which in turn will allow you to choose which aperture you want to use, to get the DOF that you want.

 

[faceyournation]

Thank you all so much. Will give it a second shot tomorrow!