Stephanie

Help!!! I used a new lens, a 50mm, 1.4 because I was informed

it was better for portraits. It was suppose to give me sharper

photos. I set my apeture at 8.0, my shutter speed set at 1/125.

ISP at 200. This photo came out very soft, as well as most of my

others. Some of my photos that were soft had a shutter speed

of 1/40th of a sec. I thought that it was because of the slow

shutter speed. What did I do wrong? Should I have set the

apeture at 5.6 or lower? Any suggestions or help would be

greatly appreciated. Does anyone know of a better place I could

have posted these questions and picture? Please advise.

to me it looks like the background is in focus not the subject. Make sure when focusing that the AF square is on your subject, also you choose where to focus do not let the camera choose focusing point. 50 1/4 is a great lens. You just need a bit practice focusing.  also for background like this one I would choose f2.8 or 1.4 to blur the background and bring out the subject more.

Besides the AF and aperture suggestion Kris has mentioned beforehand, maybe you would like to consider to change the White Balance to get warmer tone and to use fill-in flash to diminish shadow effect from the hat.

as the other commenters said, your a/f was on the background, not your subject. the 50 1.4 is plenty sharp at 1.4, except the depth of field is pretty shallow, also stopping down to f/8 isnt going to make anything sharper, the kit lens that came with my xti would be just as sharp, the purpose of a prime is that it is sharp throughout the apertures, and at 1.4 can get a gorgeous blown out background. pick your a/f point manually, keep it wide open, and forget about anything over f/4 for portraits (unless in a studio) 

If i might also suggest that you work on your posing and framing, when approaching any person, try to find their most flattering view, 45 degrees is often a good place to start, especially with hefty(er) people. and i have found that for reclining poses, having a dynamic photo looking up from their feet or down on them is a great way to pull a viewer into the photo. 

keep shooting, thats a great lens you have there.

ryan

p.s. here is a sample photo i found that illustrates my composition point

http://cache4.asset-cache.net/xc/76349781.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=8A33AE939F2E01FF1007D0AEA50B15CFFC1BEF1C1CC9E8AA6F948670D9CF4450

Hi there,

Since your background in tack sharp and your subject out of focus, I'm guessing your autofocus was fooled and this was the result. Your new lens is an excellent choice for this distance in a portrait. It may be a bit wide for a headshot. 50mm is what's considered a "normal" lens in 35mm terms. That means it sees roughly what your eye sees. The less you ask a lens to to, the better results it gives you. This is a perfect example. (It's also the reason a 70 - 300 f2.8 costs so much. It's engineered to to a LOT).

Make sure your autofocus is working on your subject, try it again (turn the autofocus off if you want). Also., try the biggest aperture (smallest number) you have and watch what happens to the background when you get your subject sharp.

Have fun!!

Dano

Make sure you set your focus on the subject.

The lens you are using should have a good soft DOF that would allow you to focus on your subject. Play with your short DOF to make your subject stand out more and be careful of your focus point. 

Have fun :) 

Kris, Budi, Ryan, Dano, and Tom. Thank you all so much for all of your wonderful suggestions. This is exactly what I needed and very helpful. I will try again with all that I've learned from all of you. Thanks again.