OKAY...sorry.....HERE ARE THE PICS..."You will not believe what the problem was!!!!"

[AMOMENT]

Okay, sorry. Stupid computer froze on me. So for all those who have watched me struggle with focus issues...you will not believe what it was!!! So way back when, when I purchased my lensess, the sales guy at Best Buy recommended me getting these lens protector/polarizers. I never thought twice about them being the issue bc at the time has basically said they wouldn't have any affect on the lens, but would prevent it from getting scratched and it was the best money I would spend. I finally found a REAL local photography store, brought my gear in, and they FIGURED IT OUT!!!!!! .....sings..............HALLELUIAH...................

I knew I was taking advice, leaving myself enough DOF, most of the time, shooting with fast enough shutter speeds, even using smaller apertures...........!!!!! I also purchased Lightroom which I think is a better fix. Here are a few photos with barely any PP so you can see!!!! For the ones of my older daughter, it was 2pm sun so I used my speedlight with a diffuser for fill light................

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

 

[MLeeK]

The focus is beautiful. You have some major flash issues in that last set, but you have finally figured out something to get your focus going in the right direction.
If you think about it-it's common sense. You know that cheap lenses will result in a cheaper quality to the image. Filters are glass. Cheap filters will degrade your images just the same. It's not your only problem, you had a lot of motion blur also, but the rest of the clarity issue is right there!

5,6 & 7 still look like you missed focus a bit.
These are also really over sharpened, but that is probably the web size. I am guessing you sharpened before resizing or uploading, so your sharpening on the originals is probably good. A word of caution here: sharpen, but don't do a FULL sharpen until you are printing. If you sharpen at full resolution and size but then print to a smaller size it will appear over sharpened. You always want to do your final sharpening at the size you will be printing.

Your images are also SOOOO much better seeing how you have stepped back from the editing. The quality and colors are beautiful!

 

[AMOMENT]

Thanks =) Yeah, they def looked sharper in lighroom and on my comouter............I was so happy at how sharp her eyes looked without me having to do all this nonsense. It totally makes sense now....I was so gullible to just hear this guy's advice, thinking he knew, and never considering that it could have been part of the problem. I had even taken my lenses to another shop, who never said anything til' I went to this place.....=))))

I shot in ttl and maybe manual with my speedlight. I wasn't that far from her so I didn't shoot in distacne priority. I think I tried shooting in manual, but even at 1/1 wasn't getting enough fill so switched to ttl. Any advice?

Thanks, Mleek =)))

 

[jwbryson1]

Focus is still soft in 3.

What site are you using to host these photos? I find that Flickr does the best job at hosting and making the images sharp. Photobucket and Snapfish are not nearly as good.

 

[jowensphoto]

I'm kind of in love with that last one. Crop is a bit tight, but if I remember your past posts, it's a big improvement

 

[AMOMENT]

Focus is still soft in 3.

What site are you using to host these photos? I find that Flickr does the best job at hosting and making the images sharp. Photobucket and Snapfish are not nearly as good.

Yeah, I use photobuckety and they always look so bad...I'm going to try Flickr

 

[paigew]

Oh my gosh erica! that is great! Now that you got that situated you can move on to the fun stuff!

 

[AMOMENT]

Thanks, Paige!! I know I am FAR from "on it" and I know I had other issues but at least I know that during the times I was trying all the advice, and still missing focus, it was in part not because of my lack of understanding of DOF, shutter, aperture etc.....which I knew, but rather this. I really did listen..=((( Again, nowhere near perfect and it wasn't my only reason for missing focus BUT, this really nice man at the shop basically told me the cap/protector/solarizer that I had, he had NEVER heard of and was prob the worst thing ever for my lens...........I couldn't believe it. I never thought to question another experts advice bc contrary to popular belief, I really do trust and try pro' tips, and instead of making my own decisions, I just followed "orders." I took that darn thing off my lenses and although I can tell that I have missed focus in some photos I feel like it is not to the degree of severity AND, that I know what I could/should have done differently.

xoxoxoxoo

 

[AMOMENT]

Truth is, my skills are not perfect, far from, I have lots of technique to still learn, but when it comes down to it I will AND CAN NEVER let this passion go because it means so much to me. I REALLY do love it and maybe that in itself will be the driving force...........

 

[AMOMENT]

Nothing better than preserving beautiful moments into tangible keepsakes right???

 

[Derrel]

Hooray!@! It's always good to overcome a technical hurdle or problem area. This case really helps to illustrate what ACTUAL, hands-on, in-person help and education can do for a person...and helps make the case for the continued existence of "real" brick-and-mortar photography shops with trained staff.

 

[unpopular]

Truth is, my skills are not perfect, far from

Mine is. 100% perfect.

Yep.

king of photography!

 

[AMOMENT]

It's amazing!! So I googles and searched forever for a local photog shop and all of them had closed except for in the city. Since going to the city with two toddlers was not an option to talk shop..........I felt discouraged. Finally, through word of mouth I heard of this place only 20minutes away that never came up in my searches but.....FOUND A LARGE AMOUNT OF PROFF' APPLIES, PROF' PHOTOGS THERE WITH DECADES OF EXPERIENCE, AND FREE AND CHEAP CLASSES TO TAKE ON SATURDAYS!! YEAY!!!!!!!!!! For so long I have been dying to have that "in person" experience so they could actually SEE what I was doing ....turns out, they were so helpful!! they even said, which felt good, that in some of the shots I had taken, that given my settings, my focus should have been there but because of this cover, it wasn't.

Thanks for being supportive guys and stickin' around....I REALLY appreciate it...=)))))) Happy end of summer !!

 

[fjrabon]

yeah, if you had ever said anything about having UV filters on your lenses, I would have said something about it. I HATE UV filters for 'protection'. UV filters once served a purpose back in the film days, when UV rays could damage the actual film. Filter makers didn't want to lose that free money (huge profit margin on UV filters), so they convinced people that they needed them to 'protect' their lenses.

Great to see that this stumbling block you seemingly could never get past is at least out of your way, so you can move forward.

 

[tacosanchez]

yeah, if you had ever said anything about having UV filters on your lenses, I would have said something about it. I HATE UV filters for 'protection'. UV filters once served a purpose back in the film days, when UV rays could damage the actual film. Filter makers didn't want to lose that free money (huge profit margin on UV filters), so they convinced people that they needed them to 'protect' their lenses.

Great to see that this stumbling block you seemingly could never get past is at least out of your way, so you can move forward.

Yeah UV for lens protection is a scam, if you drop your lens the filter can actually be the thing to damage it more often than not. However some weatherproof lenses 'need' a filter on them to complete the weatheproofing around the front element. Still not gonna use em, I really doubt it would make a difference to the weatherproofing.