hassy501 Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>What "mode" are you shooting in ? Are you controlling your F stop/shutter speed or allowing the camera to make the choice for you ?<br> Also autofocus will lock on brighter parts of your image and back or front focus. You can't depend on the camera to focus perfectly all the time. You have to be aware of the focus points while shooting to ensure that your camera is focusing where you want it to focus.<br> A strong backlit framing will tend to backfocus on the highlighted areas. Be careful of that.<br> With your flash, do you have the FEC accidently increased ? Over exposing your images ?<br> Sometimes with Canon if your flash is not seated securely to the hot shoe and there is some "play" between the flash and hot shoe it will overexpose. A loose hot shoe will cause that too.</p> <p> </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brooke_eaton1 Posted January 13, 2009 Author Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>here is a picture i took outside this fall. Once again. Blurry.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brooke_eaton1 Posted January 13, 2009 Author Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>As far as I know I do know about hand holding shake. <br> I always shoot is Manual Mode. But I keep my lens on auto focus. And everything seems tight on my flash.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
picturesque Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Looks like front focus again.</p> <p>Here is just one post about autofocusing in general. Do some searches.</p> <p><a href="http://www.photo.net/canon-eos-digital-camera-forum/00N3LQ">http://www.photo.net/canon-eos-digital-camera-forum/00N3LQ</a></p> <p>Also look up post about the 24-70mm and focus.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
picturesque Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Do you have any samples with flash?</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brooke_eaton1 Posted January 13, 2009 Author Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Sorry. Here is the last photo again.</p><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savagesax Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Brook, a basic rule of thumb - If you use a 50mm lens you can handhold safely at 50th of a second or faster. If you have a 500mm lens you can safely handhold at 500th of a second or higher. Therefore anything lower then the shutter speed requires a tripod. Again, for example, if you are using a 50mm lens and your shutter speed is 20th of a second, use a tripod. Nadine nailed your camera movement problem.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bryantan Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>"It looks in focus in the view finder"<br /> <br /> Your viewfinder is how big?<br /> <br /> "I dont think I have that much hand movement"<br /> <br /> Yes you do. Unless you have bionic arms, I don't think you can escape the laws of physics. But shutter speeds aren't your primary problem; and 1/20 is well within the range of reason if you're setting the flash exposure correctly. Your images are simply out of focus.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savagesax Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>When you photograph people try to find shade or even light. When there are harsh shadows on faces a flash won't really help unless it is VERY powerful. Your 430 flash won't do the job, so find even lighting.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brooke_eaton1 Posted January 13, 2009 Author Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Okay my question now is.....how can I get a higher shutter, in low light or with a flash, without a high ISO (because of noise.)</p> <p>This past weekend. I was shooting in a gym, with my flash, and I couldn't get above a shutter of a 20th.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brooke_eaton1 Posted January 13, 2009 Author Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Bryan,<br> Okay. I never said that I was a professional. Im just trying to get some help because this is something that I really enjoy. I've only had 2 film classes and with my job, I can't get out and shoot everyday. Im working on getting into a Nikon class in Chicago this April for Intro to Digital and Lighting. <br> I use auto focus, and it "SEEMS" like the subjects are in focus when I take the photo. Its a different story when I pull them up on the computer.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaiyen Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>The last photo is indeed front-focusing. It looks to me that the front shoulders of the men on the sides and the face of the girl in the middle are fairly in focus. But the women are not, since they are farther away. What aperture is that shot at? I don't have a convenient way to look at the EXIF, presuming it's there. If it's a big aperture you need to stop down more, that's all.</p> <p>Your last question - you're dealing with the holy triangle of exposure. ISO, shutter, and aperture. As you move one, the others have to shift accordingly. So if you are in a dim place, and you need a certain shutter speed and an aperture to keep enough things in focus...either your ISO goes up or you use a flash. One of the reasons why flash is so prevalent in event photography is because of this (and is the reason why it's so critical to have a good understanding of how to use flash). </p> <p>In the gym, you'd likely need to add more flashes. Take a look at strobist.blogspot.com for how to handle that.</p> <p> </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bryantan Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>I never implied that you were, nor that you need to be a professional to understand what I'm saying. Same principals apply to contact sheets and thumbnails - you can't use them to accurately verify focus.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savagesax Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Brooke, you are limited by the power of your flash or flash units. A lot of photographers will setup 1 or more flash units, such as in a gym as you discribed. At very large reception halls I've setup as many as 8 strobes. Your little 430 flash unit cannot carry light very far, so you have to add more lights. The 430 flash unit is very good, but it has it's limitations. I find that even the most powerful on camera flash units have a max distance of about 20 to 25 feet at ISO 400 at F 2.8. I'm sure someone may say I'm wrong, this is just a general viewpoint of mine.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
picturesque Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>If you are not using a flash or using a flash for fill light only, you cannot get a higher shutter speed (that surpasses the focal length you are using--remember to correct for the cropped sensor) without widening the f stop (may be OK or not) or increasing the ISO. If using the flash for fill, such as outside, you can't go higher than the camera's highest sync speed without using high speed sync, which may or may not help you, since it is weakened (nature of high speed sync), against bright sun.</p> <p>When using a flash and the flash is primary, you can 'drag the shutter', whereby you use a slower shutter speed--one that normally you couldn't hand hold--and the flash duration itself will act like a secondary shutter speed and freeze motion. However, don't just use an arbitrary shutter speed. It should be a speed that underexposes the AMBIENT EV by about 2 stops or more. You can also do searches on dragging the shutter. One thing--Canon flash tends to underexpose, and while you may think your flash is primary, it may not be, which opens the door to soft images because the margin between the ambient EV and the flash exposure is too narrow.</p> <p>I think you need to handle one thing at a time, as I said above. You are just going to confuse yourself if you try to handle everything at one time. You are also not going to do yourself any favors by just grabbing at a likely solution. Take the time to sort things out--use a process of elimination to figure out what the real problems are.</p> <p>Re the hotshoe. So it is tight, but be aware of it next time you seem to get overexposed images. There can be other contact problems.</p> <p>Do you mean the last image to be a flash example? If so, it isn't the flash that is washing out the picture. The highlighted skin is beginning to blow out. If anything you need to expose for the brighter parts of the image and fill adequately with flash.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
picturesque Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Allan--exif is ISO 400, 1/1600, f5.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaiyen Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Nadine - thanks. </p> <p>f5 seems like it would be enough to have them all in focus but it depends on the lens, too, of course. certainly if you're at 1/1600 you could go to f8 no problem and still have tons of shutter speed. </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savagesax Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>How do you guys know what her camera settings are? Never could figure that out. I right clicked the image, but no details were shown.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
picturesque Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Bob--I use the freeware Opanda exif reader.</p> <p><a href="http://www.opanda.com/">http://www.opanda.com/</a></p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savagesax Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Thank you Nadine</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
picturesque Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Focal length was 45mm (80 ish for non crop), so f 5 might have gotten them (at least their faces) in focus if the focus point was correctly placed. I would have gone smaller on the aperture, personally to give myself a margin of error. Based on that image, I might suspect the lens, since most autofocus issues with Canon lenses result in back focus--focusing on the contrasty tree branches behind them.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve_c.5 Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>One tip, Brooke: you might want to frame things so you're not chopping their feet off, as in the first shot you posted. If you're doing an upper torso framing, it's okay to chop legs off, but for that shot, I would have stepped back a bit or zoomed a little wider. Generally, you never want to chop through a joint.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gertle Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Hi Brooke, I looked at the photos you provided and would like to add a bit to some of the comments already made. Along with Nadine's comments about hand holding at lower shutter speeds and the narrow depth of field with a wide-open aperture, you might pay mind to the focus point that was selected when the photo was taken.<br> <br /> <p>This could explain why the Mom's sleeve was in better focus in the chapel photo and in the photo of the couple it is possible that the camera focused on the wall in the background rather than the subject. And finally in the group photo, by the look of the leaves in the foreground I would guess that the focus point might have been on the legs of one of the girls rather than on their bodies or faces.</p> <br /> <p>You might be able to change the EXIF data in your photos to record the focus point along with the shutter/aperture stuff. The number and location of focus points could be one difference between the XTi and your former setup.</p> <br /> <p>Also regarding the flash in the first photo, the shadows on the brides left shoulder and the hightlights in the the Mom's glasses would indicate that there were other light sources that severely over-powered your unit. A step up to the 580 is probably in order.</p> </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brooke_eaton1 Posted January 13, 2009 Author Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>ok steve. thanks!</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
picturesque Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 <p>Gary--the focus in the first photo is not on the wall--it is front focused. However, the focus point in the outdoor image is where you pointed out. These two images are very similar in front focus, which is why I begin to suspect the lens. Most Canon lenses will back focus when misfocusing.</p> <p>And you are right about the flash, but a more powerful flash won't help unless Brooke just ran out of flash power, which doesn't seem likely at ISO 400, f2.8. ETTL tends to underexpose, so I suspect the flash didn't put out enough flash. Flash compensation is in order here, not a more powerful flash.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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