Techniques to improve sky background, color balance, focus

[vicky2]

I'm having trouble consistently in the following areas and wondering if anyone

would be kind enough to give me some advice?

 

-- In the type of lighting/background situation you see in my example photo,

the colors always look off, the sky is flat. Is it me or just the lighting

situation? Should I have used a flash here so I could underexpose the sky? I

don't have a flash, but just wondering if I should get a powerful flash for

stuff like this.

 

-- I have so much trouble with FOCUS in pictures with moving subjects. I

usually do aperture priority and try to get the lowest (number) aperture I can.

Even when I increase the aperture (or decrease - what's the correct

terminology?) to F22 I still have trouble focusing sometimes. I have a Nikon

D50 and Nikon 70-300 variable aperture lens. Is it me or the equipment or both?

Any suggestions for improvement?

 

- How much does image quality decrease by going up to 800 ISO? I've been trying

to compare 400 to 800 but can't see that much of a difference. Is it still

preferred to stick to a lower number or has the technology been improved so it

doesn't matter?

 

Thank you so much, I know it's a long question and I appreciate your help.

 

(By the way the attached was shot at 1/320 sec, f/4.2, 122 mm focal length,

pattern metering mode, cloudy white balance setting. This is BEFORE any

photoshop editing was done)<div></div>

[leicaglow]

You need to reduce exposure on the background, which means you'll need more light on the subject, so a flash is probably what you'll need to do this shot correctly. If I'm correctly detecting some blue sky above/around the seagull, then a polarizer might help that area.

[stoatsngroats]

I may be no help, i'm only an amatuer!

f22 is a small aperture, and f4 is a large aperture (f1.8 is larger). f22 lets less light through than f4.

you would be 'wide open' at the f4 end, and 'stopped-down'at f22.

 

I dont large print greater than 8x10 often, and ISO 800 compared to ISO 400 would be only slightly different, i think....its not worth worrying about if you gat the results you want.

 

cant say much about focussing, but the aperture end at f22 would give an increase in your focussing area....[more area around your focus point would be in focus]. this is called the depth of field.

 

 

Finally, if photgraphing moving subjects, shutter priority which gives control of speed would be better.

 

hope this helps!!

[mark pav]

A person or object moving quickly towards you is one of the most difficult things for a

camera's auto-focus system to get sharply focused. Your D50 does not have the most

advanced AF that Nikon offers and, though I don't own one myself, I would guess that the

rate of keepers would not be anywhere near 100% for this camera. Even my D2X doesn't

get it right every time and it has the fastest, most accurate AF of any camera in the world

right now.

<br><br>

A small aperture will get more things in focus, but that isn't necessarily your answer,

because that has drawbacks in itself. For one thing, at, say, f22 you are losing a *lot* of

light compared with what you could get at, for example, f5.6. That means your shutter

speed will be slower and you have more chance of motion blur in your subject. Secondly,

focus is relative and even at f22, some things will be more in focus than others and you

want the subject to be sharpest, which is not a guarantee. Plus, it looks more appealing to

isolate your subject a bit with a shallow depth of field.<br><br>

 

So what can you do? I recommend a few things. Firstly, practice! :) Seriously, you need

to learn what your camera is capable of and what it isn't capable of, so that you can work

within its limitations for a higher chance of successfully capturing the shots you want. I

would not shoot at a smaller aperture (higher number) than f8 for stuff like the pic you

posted above. An aperture of anywhere from f5.6 and f8 is a good place to start. Next,

set your camera's AF to continuous focus. Also, set it to take multiple shots every time

you hold the shutter button down. You don't <i>need </i>to hold the button down and

get all those shots, but it's a good setting to have the camera on for action stuff. The AF

area setting is something you might wanna read about, too. Although this is written for

the D200, it's a good informative thing to read: <a href="http://www.nikonians.org/

nikon/d200_multi-cam_af/">Click Me!</a> <br><br>

 

Finally, the way to get the best exposure in shots like the one above is about priorities and

balancing acts. Without a flash you have three choices: expose correctly for the sky and

underexpose the lady's face; expose correctly for her face and overexpose the sky; try to

get a middle ground exposure for them both, which means slightly overexposing one and

slightly underexposing the other. Because she's backlit you can't really balance them so

you have to pick the part that is most important and expose for that. You'll need to either

shoot on manual mode or else use either aperture or shutter priority with some exposure

compensation added. If she wasn't backlit then you'd have a better chance of balancing

the scene without really having to think about it. <br><Br>

 

If you can use a flash, you can set the exposure to whatever the scene requires and then

brighten her face with the flash. To explain this properly would take about as many words

as I've already used. :) You'll have to look it up, or buy a decent flash and read the

manual. <br><br>

 

Hope you find your answers somewhere in all of those words. :)

[mtreinik]

As others have stated, if you want deeper colors in the sky, you need to balance the contrast between background and the main subject. Cross lighting with two bare-bulb off-camera flashes would look nice in this photo, as there is already some natural cross-lighting provided by the sky.

 

---

 

The softness in your example photoseems to be a combination of camera shake, subject movement and softness of the lens, not so much a focusing problem. Notice how the grass is sharpest right at the feet of the subject (perhaps slightly back focused, though).

 

At the focal lenghts you describe you need to have very steady support for you camera and lens to avoid camera shake. The thumb rule about shutter speed being 1/focal length doesn't guarantee sharp photos. Try using a tripod or a monopod.

 

Some of the blur in your image is also subject motion, that is apparent in the right hand and head of the subject.

 

Also your lens will not be very sharp at full aperture. That can be improved with sharpening in post processing, however.

 

---

 

If you don't see much of a difference in the image quality, then there is no reason to stick to lower number. You might have a tougher time getting deep dark colors without blowing the highlights, but try it out and see how it works for you.

[mtreinik]

Oh, I forgot to mention, that very small apertures (high f-value) like f/22 will definitely always be soft because of diffraction. Usually the smallest usable aperture is something like f/11 or f/16. From there on you will get more softness due to diffraction than sharpness from increasing depth of field.

[rhold]

If you have a nikon flash (sb 600 or 800) you can put tape on the back two pins. which alows

you to use as fast shutter speed alowing you to get less light on you background which will

make your sky the correct color.

[wieslaw1]

I do not see any focusing problem, or any other problem, with

your photo above. You got what you focused on. At the f/4.2 and

120mm tele, at such a close distance your sharp zone is quite

shallow. There is nothing wrong with that, unless you want to

have the entire space, from the foreground to the background at

the infinity in focus. But that's another story, not possible without

a tripod, and the smallest apertures. At1/320 sec there is no

'motion blur' due to unsteady hand or running, like she does.

 

And do not worry about what Mikko says about 'diffraction' and

softness at f/22. These apertures are perfectly to use and

produce sharp pictures.

 

Finally your colors are not really 'flat', but shadowless and not

brilliant. Only such colors are perceived under the flat

illumination you encountered.

[mtreinik]

I have to disagree about 1/320 second guaranteeing a blur free exposure. If the hand of the subject is moving faster than 1 meter / second across the picture, it will leave a trace of at least one pixel. That is so, because in 1/320 seconds the hand has moved about 3 millimeters across the frame.

 

Also, hand-holding a 122 mm lens with 1,5 crop factor is possible at 1/320 seconds, but it's not a sure way to avoid camera shake. A sharp poke at the shutter release will very likely introduce some camera shake that would be visible in the full resolution image. The right way of pressing the shutter release has been discussed before in this forum.

 

Diffraction is not something to worry about. It's just useful to know, why a photo at aperture f/22 is fuzzier than a photo at f/11.

[wieslaw1]

Mikko, perhaps your photographs, with whatever equipment you

are using, are less sharp at f/22, than at f/11. Mine are not even

at f/64.

 

The professionals who constructed optical lenses for small and

larger formats, knew their job and knew what they were doing.

So they have used permissible size of the circle of diffusion in

their calculations, and took into account common magnifications

for particular camera sizes. That?s why they designed f/22 into

Leica lenses. I am talking about high quality products, not mass

production of point and shoot, cheep gadgets, commonly called

?digital camera?.

 

As I already said, don?t talk about ?diffusion? in the analog

systems, because you are incapable of seeing it on normal

photographs if you have good optics.

 

I can go even further. Please look at my link ?Sharpness test? on

my page. The final magnification of the tested image is about 1.2

x 3.0 meters - that is magnified image from a 35mm negative! If

you notice your ?diffusion? on these enlargements, then I?ll mail

you a 1000$ check to Finland.

[afilippides]

Vicky, I will agree with all the above.

An SB600 (or SB800)would light up your subject and would add some contrast to the sky.

Additionally, By using a flashgun you will be able to shoot in higher shutter speeds, getting sharper images in motion.

 

Something else to add, which may sound silly but nobody mentioned since it sounds as a common sense issue. What is the AF mode in your camera when taking this picture? Are you using AC Focus (continuous tracking of the object)? just to make sure ;-)