What am I doing wrong?

JerseyJules · Aug 16, 2012

I took some photos today, and Im not happy with the way any of them came out. How would I get this photo where the entire statue is in focus, the background blurred a bit and the sky not blown out..It seemed as if the camera wanted to auto focus on different sections of the statue at a time and blur other parts.
I took it with a Nikon D3100 the lens was zoomed between 45-55mm ISO was 100, Shutter was 1/125 and Aperture was F5.6. Thanks in advance.

480sparky · Aug 16, 2012

Do you remember which AF point the camera used? I prefer to just manually focus.

That, or I use just the center point, aim the camera so it is where I want to focus on, press the shutter button down half-way, then recompose the shot while still holding the button down. When I've recomposed the shot I want, I press the shutter button the rest of the way down.

JerseyJules · Aug 16, 2012

480sparky said:
Do you remember which AF point the camera used? I prefer to just manually focus.

That, or I use just the center point, aim the camera so it is where I want to focus on, press the shutter button down half-way, then recompose the shot while still holding the button down. When I've recomposed the shot I want, I press the shutter button the rest of the way down.

It was set to Dynamic.

tirediron · Aug 16, 2012

There are a few different techniques needed to deal with all the things you want to do. First, do render the focus on the statue and not the background, you need to limit your depth of field, or how much of the image is in sharp focus. This is controlled by the focal length of the lens, the camera to subject distance and the aperture; the longer the focal length (eg 200mm) the less of the image that will be in focus. As well, the larger the aperture you use (eg f4 vice f11) the less will be in focus, and the closer you get to the statue, the less will be in focus. So: Use the longest focal length (telephoto) lens you have, set your camera to aperture priority and select the smallest f#, and get as close as you can. Bear in mind that depending your lens, you might not be able to achieve what you want due to the physical limitations of some of your gear.

To deal with the blown out sky and under-exposed statue, you can either add more light (yes, I know that seems wrong), but adding a flash to the equation may allow you to get an exposure that will provide a well exposed statue and sky, HOWEVER, given that you want to use a large aperture for the selective focus, that is likely not the best option. Therefore I would suggest using a technique called high dynamic range merge, commonely called "HDR" where you take 3-5 shots of the scene from EXACTLY the same point, but at different exposures; one exposure for the sky, one for the middle area, and maybe two for the statue so that you have a series of images which are identical except for exposure and each one has one part of the scene correctly exposed. You can then use special software to merge these images and create a composite with the best overall exposure. This technique does require special software and the results can look "unusual" (check out some of the posts in our HDR gallery further down).

Hope that helps...

SCraig · Aug 16, 2012

JerseyJules said:
It was set to Dynamic.

Another victim of dynamic focus choosing what it thinks you want in focus as opposed to you choosing what you want in focus. Turn it off and see if things don't start to be more predictable. If not you can always turn it back on.

Personally I've never had the urge to turn mine back on. I detest it. I don't want my cameras deciding what to focus on, I'll tell them what to focus on. I use the center focus point and only the center focus point, and never, ever, not for any reason whatsoever turn that dynamic focus mess on.

JerseyJules · Aug 16, 2012

tirediron said:
There are a few different techniques needed to deal with all the things you want to do. First, do render the focus on the statue and not the background, you need to limit your depth of field, or how much of the image is in sharp focus. This is controlled by the focal length of the lens, the camera to subject distance and the aperture; the longer the focal length (eg 200mm) the less of the image that will be in focus. As well, the larger the aperture you use (eg f4 vice f11) the less will be in focus, and the closer you get to the statue, the less will be in focus. So: Use the longest focal length (telephoto) lens you have, set your camera to aperture priority and select the smallest f#, and get as close as you can. Bear in mind that depending your lens, you might not be able to achieve what you want due to the physical limitations of some of your gear.

To deal with the blown out sky and under-exposed statue, you can either add more light (yes, I know that seems wrong), but adding a flash to the equation may allow you to get an exposure that will provide a well exposed statue and sky, HOWEVER, given that you want to use a large aperture for the selective focus, that is likely not the best option. Therefore I would suggest using a technique called high dynamic range merge, commonely called "HDR" where you take 3-5 shots of the scene from EXACTLY the same point, but at different exposures; one exposure for the sky, one for the middle area, and maybe two for the statue so that you have a series of images which are identical except for exposure and each one has one part of the scene correctly exposed. You can then use special software to merge these images and create a composite with the best overall exposure. This technique does require special software and the results can look "unusual" (check out some of the posts in our HDR gallery further down).

Hope that helps...

So stand farther away and zoom in on the image, then render the statue, then re-frame the shot is what your saying. I will give it a try. Another thing that was screwing with the focus was the boy is actually slightly forward from the cop and at an angle, so he would be the first portion the camera would focus on due to being closer.

My lens is a generic 18-55 that came with the camera. Im looking at picking up Nikon's new AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR.

JerseyJules · Aug 16, 2012

SCraig said:
JerseyJules said:

It was set to Dynamic.

Click to expand...

Another victim of dynamic focus choosing what it thinks you want in focus as opposed to you choosing what you want in focus. Turn it off and see if things don't start to be more predictable. If not you can always turn it back on.

Personally I've never had the urge to turn mine back on. I detest it. I don't want my cameras deciding what to focus on, I'll tell them what to focus on. I use the center focus point and only the center focus point, and never, ever, not for any reason whatsoever turn that dynamic focus mess on.

Gotcha!!Ill give that a shot.

Tee · Aug 16, 2012

Keep in mind if you want to get the whole statue in focus, the statue is not on the same focal plane. I'm guestimating you'll need at least 2ft in focus. You can google depth of field calculators (there's apps for that, too) and you can plug in your camera and lens and play with the right distance. You can get a blurry background even at f/8 but with the subject to background distance that may be tough.

JerseyJules · Aug 16, 2012

Well let me ask, does the picture look bad as it is??

cgipson1 · Aug 16, 2012

SCraig said:
JerseyJules said:

It was set to Dynamic.

Click to expand...

Another victim of dynamic focus choosing what it thinks you want in focus as opposed to you choosing what you want in focus. Turn it off and see if things don't start to be more predictable. If not you can always turn it back on.

Personally I've never had the urge to turn mine back on. I detest it. I don't want my cameras deciding what to focus on, I'll tell them what to focus on. I use the center focus point and only the center focus point, and never, ever, not for any reason whatsoever turn that dynamic focus mess on.