Need Help not sure if its the camera or user technique error

<p>Hi I'n new to the forum but I need help. I just recently shot a wedding reception and I thought I had all the settings and I used my Nikon D5200 35mm 1.8g prime lens for low light. I shot roughly around a 2.8-5 aperture due to the amount of people in a group. Iso was high around 800 and 1200 which I know is bad with noise but I didn't have a flash because it overheated during the first hour so I used a light scoop since the ceiling was low. Back to my problem. On this photo I was focusing on the group of girls always trying to focus on the eye and thought the photo came out in focus but when I looked at it in light room I noticed the back was in focus and the front was out of focus. I know I focused on the girls but no mater how close of far I was I keep getting this issue. During the whole time the shots were not focusing right. I even tried the back button focus that is supposed to help. I tried lowering the noise and putting the photo in B&W and raising clarity and contrast but is this an acceptable photo to provide to the client? I really need to know what I can do so this doesn't happen again. Any ideas if this is a sensor issue and I might need to upgrade my body or would this be a user issue. I had over 1000 photos and came out with about 200 keepers. I want to prevent this from occurring again. I've tried different settings in manual and A mode but don't understand why the background in in complete focus and the foreground that I am focusing on is not and also a bit grainy.</p>

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<p>This is a problem of letting the camera think for you instead of the photographer telling the camera what to focus on. Lock focus on the subject in the foreground and open up about a stop of exposure compensation (because the background is brighter than the subjects) and this will be a better picture. As you know some flash fill would have helped here. Good luck!</p>

<p><strong>What is the Shutter Speed of the sample image?</strong></p>

<p>Irrespective of user or focusing problems which might be contributing to the quality of the images of the women, it appears on first glance, that (too slow a) Shutter Speed is a contributing factor to rendering the women blurry.</p>

<p>The foreground (the women) is underexposed, that's the main reason why they appear so grainy compared to the background - your TTL meter read the whole scene, not the "correct exposure" for the women. </p>

<p>WW</p>

<p>How is your focus matrix set? Sometimes multiple points are fine. Others, a center spot or cluster is called for. In low light, cameras can sometimes become 'smarter than themselves' and seek out the areas of greatest contrast differential. This may be something in the background instead of a face...</p>

<p>Check your settings!</p>

<p>Hi Jessica, I had a similar problem with a few photos recently. I often photograph sports, so I set my autofocus to af-c. It is great for moving subjects. I was taking some photos the next day of still subjects. I would focus and re-compose, thinking the photos were in focus, when the camera was actually re-focusing as I recomposed. It was a silly mistake, and I realized my mistake after just a few photos were taken. Looking at your photo, I am thinking that may have happened to you. Check to see if your camera is set to af-c instead of af-s. The light fixtures in the background are definitely what the camera focused on. Another possible cause could be releasing pressure on the shutter button after you focus, causing the camera to re-focus when you press the shutter fully to take a photo. As for the exposure, It appears that the bright background fooled the meter. The overall exposure of the photo looks about right. I would either get closer and take a meter reading without the bright background in the frame, or overexpose. When I am doing group or single portraits, I usually choose a single focus point, then focus, then re-compose. I hope this helps.</p>

<p>This looks pretty obvious to me - the camera focused on the wall instead of the women. As someone else recommended, you should use a different setting on the camera, instead of allowing the camera to choose focus points for you. You may want to consider locking the focus point to the center. This will allow you to focus on the closest person with a half-press of the shutter button, and then move the camera around to frame the shot as you prefer.<br>

Forget the noise from high ISOs. You have bigger problems than a shot being grainy. Get the focus right before anything else. Once you can reliably focus, then you need to think about exposure. In this photo, you have the ladies standing in front of windows. There is a lot of light coming in from the windows, and the women are lit from behind you, with indoor light. When the camera chooses an exposure for a shot like this, it gets fooled by the bright light behind the subjects. <br>

You have 3 ways to fix this problem. Note that when using a flash, the camera still has to meter the scene (in fact, it will now meter TWICE) and choose an exposure... so the flash would not solve this problem (but it may help it a bit):<br>

1) Exposure compensation. This tells the camera, "whatever you think you want to expose this scene at, make it lighter" or, "make it darker". This is usually a dial or a combination of a button and dial, that sets exposure comp. I'm a Canon/Fuji guy, I'm not familiar with how to do this on Nikon.<br>

2) Exposure lock. This is when you point the camera at something, and tell the camera "THIS is what I want you to expose for". This can help you because, in this example, you could find something else that is lit as dark or as light as the women, and lock the exposure. What you are effectively doing is telling the camera what exposure you want. This sounds complicated to beginners, but it is not. I typically aim the camera at a nearby wall or floor that is lit with interior lighting, away from the window. Then the next shot you take, will be exposed the same way. I can see on the D5200, there is an "AE-L" button for this.<br>

3) Shoot manual. This is not as hard as it sounds. The camera has a meter - you still use it, you just use it as a SUGGESTION. One easy way to do this is to move the camera mode dial to Aperture priority, aim the camera at the desired lighting (not necessarily the subject) and half-press the shutter. The camera will then give you a meter reading, i.e. f/2.8, 1/60th of a second, at ISO 1600. Then you move the mode dial to Manual, and set the camera for f/2.8, 1/60th of a second and ISO 1600. That's it! If it's too dark or too light, just adjust the ISO or shutter speed till you get something you like. If you move from one room to another, you'll have to adjust the settings again... any time the light changes.<br>

Overall though - your camera is fine. Your lens is good for this lighting (although the focal length is not ideal for how I choose to shoot indoors - it's a bit more of a telephoto than I like to work with), and the camera body is fine. Go ahead and shoot away at ISO 1600 or 3200. Sure it will get grainy but it's not as big a deal as you think, if the shots are sharp (properly focused) and you are managing camera shake (keep the shutter speeds high enough to compensate for this).<br>

For reference - I shoot events with the center focus point locked in, aperture priority (if not using a flash), and use the exposure lock button to get exposures I like. If I'm using a flash, I shoot in manual mode, and use Flash Exposure Lock, which is basically the same as exposure lock - but it takes into account the use of the flash.<br>

I STRONGLY encourage you to forget about noise, and concentrate on proper focus, proper exposure, and managing shutter speeds to eliminate camera shake.<br>

Thanks<br>

-Glenn</p>

<p>Just re-reading some other comments.<br>

I agree on the focus mode, if you had the camera set to continuous focus (af-c) then you CAN'T lock focus on a subject, and unpredictable stuff will happen.<br>

And also - Gil touched on this too - any time the camera is doing something for you, you have the added challenge of figuring out why it did what it did. Shoot more in manual mode while you're practicing, and you will learn a lot, very quickly, about your camera's meter and its metering modes.</p>

<p>Unless you REALLY KNOW where the camera is focusing on, I would use CENTER focus, which is what I use. That way I KNOW what I am focusing on and don't get confused which focus point the camera is using. On my old D70, it was not easy to see which AF point the camera selected to use. Then I use the AF LOCK or half shutter, to hold/lock the focus as I move the camera to compose the shot. And if it gets too complicated, as it sometimes gets in these events, I focus on the subject, then turn the AF to MANUAL, thus locking in the focus so the camera won't refocus on something else. Just remember to turn the AF ON, when you are done with the shot, so the camera can focus again. As was mentioned, sometimes AF gets in the way as the camera tries to think too much.</p>

<p>With the Nikon cameras the opposite to your picture happens, in AUTO the camera will focus on the CLOSEST SUBJECT. Thus at a banquet or the head table, it would focus on the front of the table, rather than the people on the other side of the table. Got burned once, and I no longer use the AUTO mode at all. So you have to know how the modes affect the focusing.</p>

<p>You need to learn and know your flash and know its limits. I've read a few too many posts about people overheating their shoe flash. If your style is to shoot a LOT fast, you need to change to a flash that has a higher duty cycle, and will not fail from a lot of shots in a short period of time. Or you need to change your style to shoot less, so you don't overheat the flash.<br>

Just like a backup camera, you should also carry a backup flash, for when the primary flash fails.</p>

<p>gud luk</p>

<p>I'm sorry to say but it's user error. Actually a very common error and so nothing to be ashamed of. Also it's a hard one to catch unless you are more or less expecting it to happen.</p>

<p>The camera is focusing on the background because the background is brighter and it's easier for the camera to find something there to focus on. There are several technical reasons for that but I won't go into it. To avoid it happening, you need to know how all the focusing settings on your camera works and find out what settings works for you in situations like this.</p>

<p>You will get the highest level of control if you select the single focus point mode, and select one of the cross focus points in the center to focus with. You don't have to focus on the head or eye at all, actually in this case I would advice against it. Focus on something that is high contrast but the same distance then recompose and shot.</p>

<p>With af-on focusing (backbutton) you can focus one time, then recompose and shoot several images without having to hold the shutter button half pressed the entire time. The technique doesn't make your camera focus better, it only allows more control of when you want to focus and when you want to shoot images.</p>

<p>Single focus point, af-on focusing, af-c focusing mode, release priority and using a split-image focusing screen is how I choose to solve this problem. It allows me full control of when and where I allow the camera to focus and I can easily verify that the focus is spot-on right in the viewfinder. However that may not be the right solution for you.</p>

<p>You have a couple of other secondary problems going on. But I wont go into that more detail than saying that you need to control exposure and also shutter speed.</p>

<p>PS. I wrote this post while a couple of posts above this one where posted so sorry for repeating some of what was said.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Don't feel too bad. It has happened to all of us and will continue to happen.<br>

If the entire picture is blurry... camera shake (you need a higher shutter speed, to brace yourself against a door frame, or to put the camera on a tripod).<br>

If one person is blurry but others at the same distance from the camera are sharp... subject movement (higher shutter speed or take more images and ask subjects to hold still)<br>

If one part of the image is sharp but others at different distances from the camera are blurry... the autofocus did a great job, but it picked a different part of the scene to focus on than you would have picked if you had used manual focus.</p>

<p>(Nice composition, by the way; I would probably have ended up with those lamps growing out the subjects' heads.)</p>

<p>As Glenn mentioned, when it is DARK, crank up the ISO level.<br>

Better to get a noisy shot than no shot.<br>

When I shot my nieces wedding, I had no qualms about cranking my D70 up to it's max of ISO 1600. Again, shot or no shot . . . I choose shot. Even so some of my shots were down at 1/15 sec lens wide open. Darn dark church.<br>

Besides, most people won't recognize digital noise and when printed to the 4x6 that most prints are made, they won't see the noise. What they will see is the image.</p>

<p>BTW, you should practice low shutter speed hand holding and tricks to shoot at SLOW shutter speeds. Because as I was, you may find yourself in a situation where you also have to shoot at a SLOW shutter speed. Like at churches that prohibits the paid photographer from using a flash, never mind that the guests are firing off their cell phones and P&S with flashes.</p>

 

<p>I usually avoid this situation by using the center focus point.<br>

In my camera (Canon 6d), the center focus point is the only cross-type focus point so I try to use it as much as I can. After I grab the focus I reframe the shot to get the composition I like. <br>

I hope that helps. This has happened to me many times when I use the Automatic modes in my camera.</p>

<p>Ooops, I got my stats wrong. That is what happens when you rely on memory...it fails.<br>

It was a 70-210/f4 zoom with no VR; shot at 210mm, wide open f4 at 1/60 sec, hand held.<br>

The images were good enough to go into the bride's (my niece) album.</p>

<p>Because of the DIM church and slow f4 lens (this was in the pre-VR days) and a new camera, I was expecting a 80% failure rate, but it was 80% keepers. I call the hit-rate, a combination of luck and technique.</p>

<p>Some Nikon cameras allow the ISO setting to go into the possibly noise region, and instead of giving it an ISO number, they indicate by +1/2 or +1. Outside of that, the values that it lets you set should not have excessive noise. Much better to get the shot with noise, than not at all.</p>

<p>I can't look at the photo in the link, as it seems to want a login.</p>

<p>A way too common problem is center AF finding the background between two people.<br>

As you can't always shoot an odd number of people, you have to remember that this can happen, and adjust appropriately. </p>

<p>In bright scenes, you can often tell through the viewfinder that AF is getting it wrong (unless you are too distracted). It is much harder in low light.</p>

<p>You might practice some taking pictures with M (manual) exposure mode, and with AF turned off. That will help you get used to judging exposure and focus, and realizing when AE and AF are likely to get it wrong.</p>

<p>Some older, manual focus, lenses are easier to focus manually than AF lenses.</p>

<p>But even the best miss once in a while. </p>

<p>With practice, you get the miss rate down low enough.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"I can't look at the photo in the link, as it seems to want a login."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Irrespective of requiring a login; the image seems to have been removed from the link.</p>