How do I get the eyes in focus????

[jolie_dickson]

<p>Good Morning,</p>

<p>I recently took a pictures for my friend's family. I do not have a fixed lens. I used my 18-200 lens on my sony A300. The pictures are nice, but when I zoomed in during post, I noticed the eyes are not sharp, but blurry. I tried to shoot mostly on AP, but found myself getting frustrated so I switched to auto. (I am trying hard not to, but find I always need a tripod...that's a whole other question.) Do I focus the camera on the eyes or in between the eyes?I was so disappointed when I saw the photos because I was sure they were great. How do I get the whole photo (especially the eyes) clear and sharp?</p>

<p>Thank you to anyone who can offer some advice.</p>

<p>Jolie</p><div></div>

[jolie_dickson]

<p>sorry for the large photo.</p>

[paddler4]

<p>More information about the shot would be helpful. Aperture priority vs. automatic will have no effect--that controls exposure, not focus. Here are some things to consider:<br>

--What is the aperture? It looks like it is quite wide, which gives you narrow depth of field. Pleasing for portraits, but less margin for error in focusing.<br>

--what is the shutter speed and focal length? The longer the length and slower the speed, the more likely it is that you have a bit of motion blur. this image does not particularly suggest that, but your comment about a tripod does.<br>

--what AF points did you use? the camera has no way of knowing that the eyes are what you are worried about. The AF points will hunt for contrast, and if there is a lot more contrast elsewhere in the image, that's where it will focus. One solution, if you have a narrow depth of field, is to use the center point only and focus that point on the eyes. then to get the framing right, you may have to lock the focus and recompose or crop the image.</p>

<p>Also, I know nothing about the quality of Sony lenses, but as a general rule, superzooms (with a very large zoom ratio) tend not to be very good, particularly at the extremes. Most of the best zooms have a zoom ratio of about 3x. Some good ones are bigger, even 5 or 6, but with some compromises. Yours is 10x. That is certainly not a reason to chuck it, but it may mean that even when you get other things right, when you blow things up to pixel level, it won't look as sharp as some others. But unless you are going to be displaying it at a large enlargement, it may make very little practical difference. Lots of people get a lot of good use out of superzooms. Just have to be realistic about.</p>

[lornesunley]

<p>According to the EXIF data the shot was taken at f/5 lens was set to 28mm and the shutter speed was 1/60 of a second, and a flash was used.</p>

<p>You could be seeing some motion blur layered with the sharper image produced by the flash. Given the brightness of the background the flash would have been fairly low powered to provide fill light.</p>

<p>Usually you focus on the eyes, in this case f/5 should have given plenty of depth of field to keep several feet in focus, so I am guessing you are seeing motion blur, or the lens is not as sharp as it could be. It almost looks like you were focused on the dog.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>There are a lot of things going on, here. In no particular order:<br /><br />1) You used a shutter speed of only a 1/60th of a second, which leaves you somewhat vulnerable to softening from motion blur on the camera. Since you're out in daylight and can avoid creating too much noise through underexposure, you can always raise your ISO setting a bit in order to buy yourself a higher shutter speed.<br /><br />2) Speaking of under-exposure ... you're in difficult light, here, with your subjects being back-lit as they are. Shooting in a program auto mode is just asking for the camera to guess wrong about the exposure, and leave some of your shaded subjects (like their faces) under-exposed. I'm guessing this is what happened, and is why you appeared to pushed the brightness and contrast so hard after the fact (which is why their shirts are so black, and the dog's head is so white - both lacking in details that have been blocked up or blown out). Are you shooting RAW, and converting to JPG, or creating those lower-quality JPGs right out of the camera? <br /><br />3) I don't see much evidence that fill flash played a large enough role to get this awkward lighting situation under control. Definitely consider doing (carefully!) more of that, or using a reflector to throw some fill light onto your subjects' faces. That will help a lot with the dynamic range issues that are killing you here.<br /><br />4) Speaking of JPGs ... the example you've posted, which is at full resolution, is only a 3MB file. That means that the JPG compression used in creating that file wasn't <em>too</em> high, but it's high enough to rob the shot of some details. This is especially apparent in detailed areas like the boys' hair. Anything about your technique/expsosure that hurt details like that are made worse by the lossy compression of the JPG-writing process. This is another argument for shooting RAW, or at least at the highest possible quality settings for JPG compression, and only reducing the quality (through compression) later, once you've got a feel for how much the image can stand.<br /><br />5) Stop down. Your superzoom lens will be sharper if you can get it closer to something like f/8. But that means less light coming in, which will also hit your shutter speed. So, that again calls for some flash fill or a reflector. <br /><br />6) More about post-production ... obviously you've played with brightness and contrast, but I'm not sure you've explored sharpening, yet. It's something you can (depending on the software you're using) apply locally, to specific areas (like your subject's eyes). You don't want to hit up the whole image, because it will distractingly sharpen out-of-focus stuff in the background, too. See the attached piece of your image, to which I've quickly done a touch of high-pass and then unsharp-mask sharpening to the left-hand boy's eyes. This would look MUCH better if I had the RAW file to work with, obviously.</p><div></div>

[waltflanagan]

<blockquote>

<p>but find I always need a tripod</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Where you using a tripod for this shot? If not try it. The image has lots of blown highlights but based on the EXIF it doesn't seem like it was very bright when you took the shot.</p>

<p>ISO : 100<br>

Shutter Speed Value : 1/60<br>

Aperture Value : 5.0<br>

Focal Length : 28.0 mm (35 mm equivalent: 42.0 mm)<br>

Lens : DT 18-70mm F3.5-5.6</p>

<p>While you are technically above the 1/focal length for shutter speed rule of thumb you are still only at 1/60s. You are going to have a little hand hold shake when you're shooting that slow.</p>

<p>It's hard to tell where exactly you focused as the highlights in the dog's head are blown out. Maybe that was the focus point. You can use a smaller aperture but that won't help the shutter speed or bump the ISO.</p>

<p>Also, you used an 18-70 lens, not the 18-200 but that should probably help as superzooms are usually lower quality.</p>

[craig_shearman1]

<p>Many good points raised here. As far as focusing itself, the standard practice is that you focus on the eye closest to the camera. In a case like this where the subject is pretty much square on to the camera, it shouldn't make much difference which eye. At f/5 and 28mm, you should have enough depth of field to cover any difference between the two. I personally find manual focus easier with portaits, as long as the subject isn't moving around. With MF, you get the focus set, then shoot as many frames as you need, recomposing slightly, turning from horizontal to vertical, etc. as long as you and the subject don't move. With AF, most systems will refocus after each shot, so you have to constantly watch to make sure the correct sensor is hitting the eye.</p>

[richardsperry]

<p>Shoot faster shutter speed.</p>

<p>Use a single AF spot, focus on face, then recompose.</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>In addition, manual focus will let you take complete charge of getting the sharpest focus exactly where you want it.</p>

<p>Many people these days no longer know how to do it. If you google™ for "how to manual focus" you will find some instructions and lessons on this. I would give some direct links but one of the top ones seems to come up against some "thou shalt not post these links" filters here on P.net.</p>

[jcuknz]

<p>When cameras are in automatic modes and using flash they default to 1/60 shutter speed for some reason I gather. When you are working at f/5 with a 28mm I think suggesting manual focusing is not a valid argument, better suggestion is to learn how to control AF and to be aware of the mix of electronic and ambient light when doing syncro-sunlight. I use spot-focus always so I am in control as much as possible. Holding half trigger while I reframe for the composition I want after achieving the focus point I want. This may be a problem when working at large apertures but I doubt if your zoom has these so a problem to be overcome in the future when manual focusing may be appropriate though less so these days when you can select the point you want to focus on while holding the framing you want. Depends if one is working with a static subject or a moving one [ hand holding comes into this class]<br>

I imagine that the default is set up becuase most flash is used in low light places. When you start using it for filling daylight shadow areas you are stepping up into an area where you probably need to take control. But of course if you had for instance used 1/125 or 1/250 shutter the aperture would have been that much larger and focusing would have been more critical. Unless you were working manually and held the f/5 aperture while increasing shutter speed. Remembering here that the aperture controls the flash output and shutter the ambient light ...<br>

While a tripod can make the difference there is also your trigger technique which can also be important that you do not jab down the trigger but a gentle but firm downward movement. <br>

I'd also suggest that rather than posting the whole image you make a 700 pixel across crop while at 100% and post that.</p>

[scott_ferris]

<p>Jolie,</p>

<p>You have had some great feedback so far. My input would be that 1/60 is easily handholdable for most people, practice your camera holding and stability techniques. I also notice that the grass in front of the boys is very sharp, whereas around their legs is much less so, I seems like the focus ended up being on the dog, a little forward of the boys, so they end up in the less sharp region of depth of field.</p>

<p>With regards post processing, Matt covered the sharpness well, I have found the directable sharpening in PhotoShop to be very effective, but you really shouldn't need it for this kind of image or set up. But you do have tonal issues that are fighting for attention, high key is popular at the moment but it needs to be better controlled, the tones on the faces are more distracting to me than the sharpness. </p>

<p>Below I lowered exposure and brought up fill light to get some tonality back in the faces. I did a sharpen on the whole image to reduce the motion blur, then I copied the layer and did another sharpen and blended that layer in soft light at 30% opacity. Obviously this processing is all to individual taste and I have made a more traditional interpretation of the scene, but the boys, I feel, have benefited, from here it is very easy to do anything you like to your background, blur and brightness wise.</p>

<p>Hope this helps, Scott.</p><div></div>

[scott_ferris]

<p>And the faces closer</p><div></div>

[dan_south]

Some autofocus systems focus on the closest object - in this case the dog. The camera probably has settings that let

you select where the camera focuses. You'll need to explore these options in your camera's documentation. There's

no post processing fix for areas that are out of focus.

[scott_ferris]

<p>Jolie,</p>

<p>I think you are being hard on yourself, with a little post processing the image comes out really nicely. Don't forget this image has strong light in the background, which is always difficult for any camera to work around, and your lens, whilst being very convenient is not as high a quality as many others. 18-200 are great but they have their limitations.</p>

<p>I'll try to attach your full size image but reworked, let us know your impressions on if it was what you had hoped for, or not!</p><div></div>

[Peter_in_PA]

<p>I think that lens might not get a lot sharper than that, and frankly, it's not so bad! If you're shooting 11 x 14 or 8 x 10, I think with the advice you've been given, you will have a shot you'll be really proud to put on your wall.</p>

<p>Awesome looking kids, that's what you're trying to show... and you did it.</p>

<p>shooting at f8 might totally solve your problem, though!</p>

[charlie_novice]

<p>Is the problem really eyes not in focus? I don't see that.<br /> <br />Especially with Scott's rework, it seems to me that the focal point is the dog's tongue <em>but</em> the depth of field is sufficient to get the eyes, too. Am I wrong?<br /><br />There are white spots on the eyes of the boy on the right - from the flash. Most post processing programs have a tool to remove them. It might be called red-eye removal or speck removal. <br /><br />I just did a clumsy photograph of someone and got a real focus problem. The focus distance is clearly at the chest. However, many people like a softened face. The eyes took local contrast sharpening well, so everything came out okay.</p>

[jolie_dickson]

<p>Thank you to everyone who responded. I am so overwhelmed! I do have this photo in RAW, but I didn't think I'd be able to upload it. I am trying to read through everything. I am hard on myself, and I feel like I can't grasp a lot of the key concepts needed to do a good job. Thanks again!</p>

[rob_mulligan1]

<p>I'm gonna agree on the motion blur opinion. I looked for ANYTHING that was in sharp focus. Nothing. That eliminates front or back focus, or your error. It seems to come back to camera shake. Raise your shutter speed and hold your breath (I exhale half way and place my tongue on the roof of my mouth. It's an old pistol shooters trick), or use a tripod or some other brace. Good luck!</p>

[Wilmarco Imaging]

<p>To my eye the original is a nice photo. As mentioned here are the basics: <br>

- use a tripod<br>

- manually focus (turn autofocus off)<br>

- smaller aperture (f/16 or smaller)<br>

- focus on one eye, using f/16 or smaller will give good depth of field<br>

- position subjects (subjects' eyes) in same plane</p>

[kari v]

<p>William, manually focusing with that Sony and a super zoom is pretty difficult, you can't see the sharpness very well unless you zoom at 200mm, focus, and then take it back to 28mm for the shot. (And hope that focus stays where it was after focal length change...) Autofocus really is fine when attention is paid where the focus point is. Using the center one only is a good way to make sure and here "focus and recompose" won't lose the focus by any meaningful margin.</p>

<p>f16 or smaller is way over the top for aps-c sensor cameras. For image like this f8 is the max you're ever going to need. Also, f16 will make the whole image a bit soft.</p>

<p>Tripod won't help much here. Sony has pretty effective an image stabilizer making handholding at 28mm 1/60s a piece of cake - it won't cancel subject movement but then again tripod wouldn't do that either.</p>