working on exposure

altair005 · Jul 9, 2010

I'm trying to work on my exposures. I hope this is an improvement.

1. 1/50 f5.6 55mm 100iso

2. 1/40 f6.3 55mm 100iso

I like this next photo, unfortunately I'm focused on the dude and not the girl.

3.1/60 f5.6 65mm 100iso

indoors with fluorescent light... ergh... I think I failed here:

4. 1/20 f5.0 60mm 200iso

I guess they're all out of focus, huh?

KmH · Jul 9, 2010

Only parts of them.

Do you know what depth-of-field (DOF) is? And how you can control it with:

lens focal length
lens aperture
subject to image sensor distance
subject to background distance?

http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/calc.htm
www.dofmaster.com

altair005 · Jul 9, 2010

KmH said:
Only parts of them.

Do you know what depth-of-field (DOF) is? And how you can control it with:

lens focal length

lens aperture

subject to image sensor distance

subject to background distance?

http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/calc.htm
Hyperfocal Distance and Depth of Field Calculator - DOFMaster

Barely. Looks like I have more reading to do. Thanks.

Lipoly · Jul 9, 2010

Even though #2 is soft, I found myself looking at it for quite some time.

altair005 · Jul 9, 2010

Lipoly said:
Even though #2 is soft, I found myself looking at it for quite some time.

what does "soft" mean? The focus?

altair005 · Jul 9, 2010

Lipoly said:
Even though #2 is soft, I found myself looking at it for quite some time.

She's a pertty girl.

subscuck · Jul 10, 2010

Your exposure looks much better, and yes they are a little soft. Looking at your shutter speeds, this could be the culprit. The general rule of thumb for hand held shutter speed is 1/focal length. So at a focal length of 50mm, the slowest shutter speed you should use would be 1/50 sec., and faster is better if you can get it. When your SS falls below that, camera shake shows itself in the form of softness. This becomes even more critical at longer FL's (100mm, 200mm, etc.) If you're already at max aperture, or you don't want a wider aperture, then you have to bump up your ISO to get what you need. For 1-3, I would have set my ISO at 200, 800 for #4. I would also recommend setting your AF points to center point only so you know exactly what the camera focuses on.

Morpheuss · Jul 10, 2010

i like the composition in 2 and 3 i also like 2 because she is very easy on the eyes and number 3 it looks like she was enjoying the shoot

altair005 · Jul 10, 2010

KmH said:
Only parts of them.

Do you know what depth-of-field (DOF) is? And how you can control it with:

lens focal length

lens aperture

subject to image sensor distance

subject to background distance?

http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/calc.htm
Hyperfocal Distance and Depth of Field Calculator - DOFMaster

Crap. Do you calculate this stuff each time you go out with your camera? I think I need to start with a watered down version of this, I've never heard of "circle of confusion". And I don't quite "get" what this is telling me. I calculate 3 meters with 55mm lens length, and it tells me that the sharpest point is at 3 meters... Ummm... okay?

Guess I need to play around with this a bit more. I will get it, eventually. Maybe.

altair005 · Jul 10, 2010

subscuck said:
Your exposure looks much better, and yes they are a little soft. Looking at your shutter speeds, this could be the culprit. The general rule of thumb for hand held shutter speed is 1/focal length. So at a focal length of 50mm, the slowest shutter speed you should use would be 1/50 sec., and faster is better if you can get it. When your SS falls below that, camera shake shows itself in the form of softness. This becomes even more critical at longer FL's (100mm, 200mm, etc.) If you're already at max aperture, or you don't want a wider aperture, then you have to bump up your ISO to get what you need. For 1-3, I would have set my ISO at 200, 800 for #4. I would also recommend setting your AF points to center point only so you know exactly what the camera focuses on.

I heard some "dude" in a Canon video say he almost always shoots at 100 ISO... So, I just took his advice. LOL

KmH · Jul 10, 2010

altair005 said:
KmH said:

Only parts of them.

Do you know what depth-of-field (DOF) is? And how you can control it with:

lens focal length

lens aperture

subject to image sensor distance

subject to background distance?

http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/calc.htm
Hyperfocal Distance and Depth of Field Calculator - DOFMaster

Click to expand...

Crap. Do you calculate this stuff each time you go out with your camera? I think I need to start with a watered down version of this, I've never heard of "circle of confusion". And I don't quite "get" what this is telling me. I calculate 3 meters with 55mm lens length, and it tells me that the sharpest point is at 3 meters... Ummm... okay?

Guess I need to play around with this a bit more. I will get it, eventually. Maybe.

DOF is the distance range, near to far, that your scene will be in focus. DOF is always parallel to the image sensor plane.

In your second image the guy is closer to being in focus than the girl. She is in front of the DOF, and his face is on the backside of the DOF. His armpit is the focal point and is in focus.

The calculators are useful for helping you gain an understanding of how DOF works..

The first link shows the DOF from the side, or perpendicular to the image sensor plane, which is on the left. Focus gets sharper as we move to the right until it gets sharpest at the lowest point on the graph, and as we keep moving from there further away from the image sensor on the left focus starts getting less sharp.

At wide apertures the DOF can be very narrow. In a portrait, the eyes could be in focus, but not the tip of the nose nor the ears. If you want the nose and ears to be in focus you would nedd to change one of more of the things I listed: the lens focal length, the lens aperture, the image sensor to subject distance. In this example changing the subject to background distance wouldn't apply.

lunaaa · Jul 10, 2010

subscuck said:
Your exposure looks much better, and yes they are a little soft. Looking at your shutter speeds, this could be the culprit. The general rule of thumb for hand held shutter speed is 1/focal length. So at a focal length of 50mm, the slowest shutter speed you should use would be 1/50 sec., and faster is better if you can get it. When your SS falls below that, camera shake shows itself in the form of softness. This becomes even more critical at longer FL's (100mm, 200mm, etc.) If you're already at max aperture, or you don't want a wider aperture, then you have to bump up your ISO to get what you need. For 1-3, I would have set my ISO at 200, 800 for #4. I would also recommend setting your AF points to center point only so you know exactly what the camera focuses on.

that was really helpfull.

altair005 · Jul 10, 2010

LOL, thanks to the link I was a fumbling idiot with my camera today.

altair005 · Jul 10, 2010

They thought I was an idiot ---> thankfully, they're my friends.

I couldn't quite get my feet grounded long enough today to fidget with my metering etc. I didn't want to make them wait around while I changed my settings, oh well.