 Ashley Johnson |
Sharpness Problem I recently helped a friend shoot a wedding and a lot of my images came out blurry. I have a Digital Rebel XT. When I was inside the church, my shutter speed was at 10 and my aperture was at 3.5. I was also using an external flash w/ a 28-300 mm lens. When I was outside, I just put the camera on the "P" mode and let it do it's thing. It was an overcast day, but I've shot on overcast days before w/o a problem. Any ideas on how to fix this?
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Rebecca A. Steed |
The highly slow shutter jumped out at me. That is your problem. You shutter needs to be AT LEAST 1/60 but should be higher, or you will have blurry shots. Just bump your ISO up, but anything above ISO 400 will begin to be grainy. Then I would shoot in aperature priority if you are not comfortable with manual. I'm sure you will get other tips, but unfortunately, I'm limited on time here. good luck.
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anonymous A. |
The exposure setting of 10 (I assume 1/10 sec) means that, after the correct exposure has been achieved with the flash, the camera goes on exposing the sensor, resulting in a blurred edge to the photo due to camera and/or subject moving after the flash. Use any setting except T or M and the camera will set an appropriate shutter speet for the flash. Your outside shots on P should have been OK unless the day was VERY overcast or you were shooting at the long end of your focal length at ISO100. Becky's recommendation (up your ISO setting) is sound. Raise the ISO until your shutter speed is 1/focal length (in this case 1/300 if you are using the 300mm end of your zoom). Canons produce very smooth images, and I often shoot at ISO800 and above without much noise, and what I do get I can control quite easily in software afterwards. Still, the lower the ISO the better....
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Jon Close |
Re: "... Use any setting except T or M and the camera will set an appropriate shutter speet for the flash. ..." Actually just the opposite. If you want to keep the shutter speed above 1/60 for shooting with flash indoors, "green box," P, Tv, and M are the modes that will do that. To get 1/10 when using flash the original poster was most likely in Av, which is the slow-sync flash mode for EOS cameras that automatically sets a long shutter speed to balance ambient and flash exposures. Alternatively, the original poster may have been using Tv or M and setting the shutter so slow in order to get the meter scale to read "0" - don't do that. In those modes the meter is reading the ambient light only without regard for the flash. The easiest/best modes for using flash indoors are P and M. In M simply set the shutter speed for 1/60 and the aperture to f/4 or f/5.6 and leave it there. The meter scale may read "-2" but that's ok as the flash will automatically be the main light for your subject. For more information on using flash with EOS cameras, http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/ is an invaluable resource.
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anonymous A. |
That's an odd comment from the most knowledgeable Canon man I know. Contradictory, too. Jon, in Av P "Green Box", any of the subject modes (except sport and landscape, in which the flash is disabled) the camera will manage the shutter speed. In M and Tv you must set it yourself. In Tv the camera will select an appropriate aperture, in M you must set both shutter speed and f stop. 1/60 at f 4 or f5.6 is a reasonable guess at typical flash to subfect distances, but Ashley was using a 28-300 zoom which will move her outside those limits on many shots, and I can think of no reason to use an approximate value when the Rebel's TTL flash metering is so accurate. No eason either not to have access to the higher shutter speeds which will help prevent ghost images from ambient light, which is a likely cause of the original problem. 1/60 is quite fast enough to produce an image indoors at quite low ISO levels.
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Jon Close |
Hi David. In Av and Night Portrait the camera does manage the shutter speed, but will set an overly long shutter speed that exposes for the ambient light and uses the flash only as fill. Green box and P are good general modes to choose with flash. Those modes will automatically set a high (1/60 or faster) shutter speed and use the flash as main light. However, they will also attempt to balance the ambient exposure by using the widest available aperture. Because a wide-open aperture is generally not as sharp as 1-2 stops smaller, and because wide-open aperture can cause a too-near subject to be over-flashed, I suggested M. You're right, that the 28-300 lens has maximum aperture of f/3.5-6.3. If f/4 or f/5.6 is set in M and the lens is zoomed to a range where the maximum aperture is smaller, the camera will automatically adjust.
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Laura Kubasiewicz |
Thanks for the link Jon, its a good one!
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anonymous A. |
G'day agin Jon, according to Canon's own literature, in all modes except M and Tv the camera will vary both the aperture AND the shutter speed with the MAIN subject properly exposed by the flash. In Laura situation, the T setting of 10 was the obvious problem indoors, and while I acknowledge that M will ensure that the subject is properly expposed (because the flash duration is controlled through the lens) the background and foreground objects will only be properly expose if the aperture/speed settings happen to be right for a non-flash picture of them. In a sense, without an exposure reading, you ae relying on them to be underexposed so as to avoid the problem of ghosted images. P would do that better.
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