 Lena Antaramian |
Cure for 'Soft' Photos?
Any advice is really appreciated!
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John Rhodes |
Lena, your photo is nice, but, as you say, soft. Notice the edges of the ears look sharp, but the features further back look soft. This is called shallow depth-of-field, where part of the image is sharp and areas in front and behind are not in focus. The solution is simple - your aperture needs to be stopped down a little. I suggest you shoot this at f/4 to f/5.6 to increase the sharpness just enough. Don't stop down too much or the background will also be too sharp and distracting. If you can practice "aperture bracketing" by shooting a similar scene with f/2.8. 4, 5.6, 8, .... to see the effect.
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- Dennis Flanagan Contact Dennis Flanagan Dennis Flanagan's Gallery |
At the same time, when taking the photo, make sure your primary point of focus is the eyes, not the ears.
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- Carlton Ward Contact Carlton Ward Carlton Ward's Gallery |
Hi Lena, You've received some great advice. Just to add: A rule of thumb for lenses is the lens will be its sharpest about 2 stops above its fastest aperture. So if you have a f/2.8 lens, it may be sharper at f/5.6 I know this is true for some of my lenses, but again it's just a guideline. Every lens has its own characteristics as there are variances between the glass/optics and assembly that make the lens. If you have (3) 24-70mm lenses, there will likely be little differences between each of them. Experiment a bit and see where your lens is its sharpest. Have fun!
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Roy Blinston |
I know what you mean about your pics being "soft" with the Canon. I noticed this the first time I switched from a Fuji camera about 8 years ago) to the Canon 20D then the 5D and have just bought the 50D. I am also using expensive glass ($4,000 lens) but it is still soft. I also stop down my apertures but it is still soft. I think it is a characteristic of Canon cameras. I have heard other people mention this also.
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Mark Feldstein |
As Carlton said, every lens, in essence, has a "sweet spot" kind of like a golf ball. My experience has been a bit different than his, however, in that I usually find my lenses sharpest at f8.5-f11, once in awhile at 11.5 but it depends on the lens and format I'm using. Also, your shutter speed of course, are critical AND so too is the way you support your camera, whether hand held or on a tripod or monopod. Generally Lena, I think you should be able to produce portrait images of individuals and couples that are tack sharp at f8.5-f11.0 and 1/125th of a second or below at even 1/60th. Now, I have no problem hand holding the camera and working at that speed, but that takes some practice. Generally those f-stops, using the depth of field preview, will produce sharpness, focusing on the eyes or nose, from the Others may have some difficulty achieving sharpness even when holding their breath when releasing the shutter gradually, so I always recommend a tripod or even a monopod. AND find your depth of field preview button and learn how to use it. That will tell you whether your image is sharp before you start blasting. Also, for film fans, locking the lens down at the designated f-stop helps prevent camera shake. The other problem I didn't see covered here is how the image gets processed. If it's film, shoot on slower emulsions that produce finer grain, say 100 ISO negative or transparency film. For digital fans, don't over pixelate. That produces soft images as well. And keep the size of your finished prints appropriate to the format you shot them because over enlarged prints viewed at close range look soft as well.
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Bunny Snow |
Do you have the same problem with other low dispersion lenses? Or, is it just with the 24-70mm f2.8 lens? Bunny
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