blurry hand

[sylvio_mayorga]

<p>Hi there!<br>

I recently did take this picture using 50mm lens..Nikon D700 and I noticed that the hand of the girl is blurry..I would like to know why??</p><div></div>

[mccosh]

<p>Without having the picture to look at I take you are referring to motion blur on her hand which is caused by a slow shutter speed. VR lenses now allow us to hand hold shots at slow shutter speeds to reduce camera shake, it doesn't however remove motion blur if your subject moves. </p>

[sylvio_mayorga]

<p>The camera was set to Program Mode..</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>The little girl was waving her hand and shaking her head. At a shutter speed of 1/125th second, the shutter speed was fast enough to freeze the rest of the photo while allowing motion blur for rapidly moving elements.</p>

<p>I often try to get this effect but usually set my shutter speed to 1/30th or slower. It's unusual to see this type of motion blur at 1/125th but conditions were just right here. I like the effect. It suits the paradoxical energy of kids, kittens and puppies, whose energy often seems frenetic yet they also wind down just as quickly for short naps.</p>

<p>It's a good photo. Keep it.</p>

<p>In future, if you want to freeze motion, use a faster shutter speed. You might need to bump up the ISO or use a wider aperture or both. For freezing really fast action a flash can help, but not everyone likes the look of flash photography. I do.</p>

[phule]

<p>[[and shaking her head.]]</p>

<p>I believe the OP deliberately (partially) cloned out her face. </p>

 

[lex_jenkins]

<p>Yup, you're probably right - on second look I see the repeated Donald Duck face. I have motion blur experiments that resemble that, in part due to the odd effects of VR or image stabilization trying to offset deliberate motion blur.</p>

[sylvio_mayorga]

<p>Exactly right..I colned the face deliberately to protect the kid (girl) privacy..which looks good the face and everything..my concern is the hand that is in movement and it was freezy i would like to know why..</p>

[phule]

<p>[[i would like to know why..]]</p>

<p>As was mentioned, she was moving her hand and the camera selected a shutter speed that allowed that movement to be seen. You were in program mode, so the camera was attempting to balance ISO, shutter speed, and aperture in the light available. </p>

[bgelfand]

<p>As others have written, this is very probably due to hand movement and low shutter speed.</p>

<p>You write that the camera was in Program mode which menas the camera selected both shutter speed and aperture. Look at the EXIF data on the image; you will see the shutter speed was 1/125 which is marginal for active children (all children are active, just when you do not want them to be active). Next time, use the command wheel to select a higher shutter speed in Program mode.</p>

[sylvio_mayorga]

<p>The ISO was set at 400..and in Program Mode..the camera was supposed to get a right outdoor picture...I've been doing this before and never get something like this..I am trying to get a logical explanation to this.</p>

[keith reeder]

<blockquote>

<p>I am trying to get a logical explanation to this.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>You've had a logical - <em>and the correct</em> - explanation, Sylvio: 1/125 is a slow shutter speed for a fidgety child. If you want more control of the camera's behaviour get out of Program mode and tell it how to get a high shutter speed.</p>

<p> </p>

[phule]

<p>[[The ISO was set at 400..and in Program Mode..the camera was supposed to get a right outdoor picture...I've been doing this before and never get something like this..I am trying to get a logical explanation to this.]]</p>

<p>[[the camera was supposed to get a right outdoor picture]]</p>

<p>The photo is well exposed, perhaps even underexposed slightly. If you manually selected ISO 400 that gave the camera only 2 things to adjust: aperture and shutter speed. The camera did its job.</p>

<p>As you do not believe the explanation provided: you have a digital camera and you know the settings. In the same open-shade light, you could so easily test the explanation provided to verify the results. Put your camera on M. Set the ISO to 400, set the shutter speed to 125th and the aperture to f/5.6. Have someone move their hands and body around. It would take a few /seconds/ of your time.</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>I'm also sure it's subject movement.</p>

<p>1/125 is <em>usually</em> fast enough to stop casual motion, but not always, so it's not surprising that "P" didn't balk here.</p>

[donbright]

<p>When Photographing people, it is common practice to automatically think in terms of shallow depth of field, wide apertures for the purpose of isolating the person, throwing out of focus extraneous information that creates a distraction away from the subject. Wide apertures generally means faster shutter speeds which at some point, 125th and up is going to freeze whatever motion the subject as in this case. Keep in mind, small apertures for great depth of field, IE. Landscapes... wide apertures to isolate the subject through shallow depth of field for portraiture. This goes to the very concept in Photography, referred to as, ' Control.' </p>

[Uhooru]

<p>I go for this effect myself. What's happening is the girl is moving faster than the shutter speed needed to stop motion. When you use program mode, the camera has to make choices about exposure including aperture and shutter speed. If the action is faster than what the camera sets shutter speed/aperture to meet its exposure criteria than you will get this type of blur. If you want to avoid this, you need to direct the camera on what to do. One thing you can try is to go shutter speed priority and set the speed high, like 1/500 or 1/1000, but then you have to check that there is enough light for an usable exposure. Depending on your light situation, you may be able to do it, by opening the lens up and maybe setting the ISO higher.<br>

The second way that I can think of offhand is simply using your flash to stop motion and there are a lot of ways and techniques for this.</p>

[bgelfand]

<p>You do not have to go to manual mode. Program mode, unlike Auto mode, can be shifted; in other words you can change the shutter speed and the aperture will change to give the correct exposure or you can change the aperture and the shutter speed will change to give the correct exposure.</p>

<p>For a better description of the process see page 117 of the English version of the D700 manual. Read the section titled <em>Flexible Program. </em></p>

<p>The camera, even today's smart cameras, can only evaluate so much in a scene. In most cases they do a wonderful job of getting the exposure right and focusing. But they cannot evaluate all forms of motion in the scene or decide if the photographer wants the motion blur.</p>

<p>You still have to think. By the way, I probably would have missed the motion in the hand, too, and would have accepted the default P-mode selected (and I have enough negatives that will never see the light of day to prove that ). It happens. Next time you will know.</p>

<p> </p>

[phule]

<p>[[You do not have to go to manual mode.]]</p>

<p>However, flexible program introduces another variable. Every time you meter the scene you will have to remember to turn the dial to reach the same equivalent exposure values. In a case where the OP is having difficulty understanding how the blur could exist in the first place, the simplest solution is to eliminate as many of the variables as possible. </p>

<p> </p>

[Uhooru]

<blockquote>

<p>You do not have to go to manual mode. Program mode, unlike Auto mode, can be shifted; in other words you can change the shutter speed and the aperture will change to give the correct exposure or you can change the aperture and the shutter speed will change to give the correct exposure.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Well, yes. But changing the shutter speed to stop action with the automatic opening of the Aperture, is effectively "shutter priority" the opposite changing the Aperture and letting the camera change the shutter speed, is effectively "Aperture Priority". The concept is the same, if you want to stop action, you either need flash or get the camera to speed up the shutter. I didn't see anyone so far say to go to "manual mode" which is the photographer manually selecting both shutter speed and aperture.</p>

[panayotis_papadopoulos]

<p>The whole image is "blurry", which might means that during the shot the camera was not still but shaky. This made things even worse with the hand movement. I am telling this because as already mentioned by <a href="/photodb/user?user_id=172915">Lex Jenkins</a>, that amount of blur motion, usually, is captured by lower shutter speeds than the given 1/125. Just my 2 cents...</p>

[bgelfand]

<p>@ Rob Bernhard</p>

<blockquote>

<p>However, flexible program introduces another variable. Every time you meter the scene you will have to remember to turn the dial to reach the same equivalent exposure values.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Not so, unless the exposure values change; at least not so on my F100, the only Nikon I have. The only time I have to make an adjustment is if the light changes, but you would have to make the same adjustments in any mode.</p>

<p>I suspect the D700 acts the same manner since the manual on page 117 states:</p>

<blockquote>

<p align="LEFT">To restore default shutter speed and aperture settings, rotate the command dial until the asterisk is no longer displayed, choose another mode, or turn the camera off.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It does not say that letting up on the half depressed shutter button or release the AE-L button and then depressing either to meter the scene resets the mode. Try it on you camera and see what happens, please.</p>

<p>@Barry Fisher</p>

<blockquote>

<p align="LEFT">Well, yes. But changing the shutter speed to stop action with the automatic opening of the Aperture, is effectively "shutter priority" the opposite changing the Aperture and letting the camera change the shutter speed, is effectively "Aperture Priority".</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Exactly Berry, that is how I use it as either shutter or aperture priority depending upon the setting I am trying to change. The only times I can remember using either aperture of shutter priority is when I am using flash. The EV of the scene is set. If you change either shutter speed or aperture to achieve your effect, you must change the other to have a proper exposure.</p>

<p> </p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>Nikon's Flexible Program Mode is a terrific feature for advanced photographers who already have a thorough working knowledge of all factor that go into making an exposure. Add to it the single dial option for quickly adjusting exposure compensation and it's a very powerful feature. I used it more than any other option on my dSLR (and I wish the V1's Flexible Program Mode worked as well, but it doesn't).</p>

<p>But it's confusing for folks who don't have that thorough understanding of how all those factors interact -- ISO, shutter speed, aperture, and how various implementations of exposure compensation can influence those -- as well as how different metering modes -- matrix, spot, averaging and adjustable averaging sizes -- influence exposures.</p>