Beginner Any feed back welcome

Its out of focus :rolleyes: may I ask what settings you used ? a smaller aperture would have helped here I think :snaphappy:

for portraits try to focus on the eyes, they have to be pin sharp or it just looks wrong

Les
 
Seconded, it looks a little soft, for studio portraits you don't really need small apertures, so don't be afraid to stop down to F8, It'll improve sharpness and allow for more forgiving focus accuracy.
 
How are you focusing on the subject?

By which I mean are you selecting the focus point manually and telling the camera where to focus (ie the eyes) or are you letting the camera decide for you? It needs to be the former and not the latter.
 
It was on auto focusing.
That's not what I meant. I'm talking about the where rather than the how. The how is manual or autofocus. The where is the point where you tell the camera to focus.

You can manually select where the camera will autofocus or let the camera "guess" where it should focus. At small apertures probably not a problem but for portraits, select the focus point and make sure the eye is in focus.
 
I pick a camera for the first time five months ago,I went along to a camera club for the first time not expecting to take photos I had my camera but no flash and a basic lens,I shall be joining the club when it resumes in September,I'm not sure where I aimed the camera as I was very nervous and was told to give it a go.
Thanks for the Input but I shallnt be putting up any more photos as I don't come on here for idiots to take the p***.
Ps thanks for the genuine replies.
 
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I pick a camera for the first time five months ago,I went along to a camera club for the first time not expecting to take photos I had my camera but no flash and a basic lens,I shall be joining the club when it resumes in September,I'm not sure where I aimed the camera as I was very nervous and was told to give it a go.
Thanks for the Input but I shallnt be putting up any more photos as I don't come on here for idiots to take the p***.
Ps thanks for the genuine replies.

Don't worry about the sarcastic replies. Your header clearly says beginner and we all began somewhere. I apologise if you think I was taking the pee - I wasn't.

If you select the focus mode to single point. You can then move the single point to a suitable position using your joypad, to enable the point to be over the eye. Focus on the eye nearest the camera, but hopefully your aperture will be suitable to have both eyes in focus.

Do keep posting. It's the surest way to quick improvement. You can ignore the irrelevant comments and learn from the useful ones.

Keep going

S
 
Yes, Shaheed takes some pretty swell portraits on here.

Spend a moment looking at some his recent efforts, a good way to learn.
 
i think what should maybe have been asked is what camera are you using first, and then does that camera have the option for centre point
using this would then allow you to focus on the eyes specifically as a point. if the camera is using all focus zones and it risks focusing on another area of the subject ( or even the background and misses the focus entirely ).
f/5.6 is perfectly fine for portraits which will give you enough sharpness while still allowing some background blur. and a shutter speed thats above the focal length will help retain sharpness if handheld ( so for a 50mm lens then speed above 1/60th second as an example )
all this of course depends on what camera your using and if you actually have the option for some manual control
so a little more information would really help.

as for the sarky comments ignore them. i bet half of em when they first picked up a camera took several shots of there ear before they realised they had it the wrong way round :p
 
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I have recently and took that photo with my 7d mkII,with a second hand 55mm lens given to me by a friend off his 400d.
 
I have recently and took that photo with my 7d mkII,with a second hand 55mm lens given to me by a friend off his 400d.
55mm ??? thats a new one on me or do you mean 50mm ( im guessing a 50mm f/1.8? ) if so my bet is you were shooting wide open too or as near to it which would only give you a few inches of DOF at the distance you were shooting at.
ideally on a 1.8 i would probably step down to around f/4 and shoot at around 1/125- 1/160 sec ISO 100 and adjust the light accordingly to suit. ( assuming there were studio lights there )
cant see the exif data on your shots to see what settings you were shooting at.
 
Perhaps the poster means the 18-55 lens at the long end.

I spent the first few months taking pictures of my feet whilst on the sofa when i was stuck in the house. In time i could perfectly focus on them and had figured out all the buttons/settings! Give it time mate and take a load of photos of anything to hand to practice. The lighting on the first one is nice

DSC_1355.jpg

(My willing test model) ;-)
 
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On lens,EF-S 18-55 1:3.5-56 11, I thought this meant 55 mm?
 
Yes you're correct - The Lens zoom ranges through 18-55mm.
 
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ahh ok so its an 18-55 standard kt zoom. at the 18mm end aperture is f/3.5 and the 55mm end its f/5.6.
for optimum sharpness a rule of thumb normally you want to go up a couple of stops so around f/5.6 on the 18mm end and around f/8 on the long 55mm end.
this may mean your shutter speed will be quite low inside but for that camera shooting ISO 800 indoors is perfectly fine .

for portraits centre focus point and use spot meter and focus on the eyes.
ideal subject to practice on if you have one is a cat or dog. ( though my cat generallyturns her backside towards me as soon as i point the camera at her. the dog is much more forgiving as you can see from this test shot i took about 15 mins ago.
this was shot f/5.6 ( as i was usinga 150-600 lens handheld and needed as much light as possible, ISO 1600 and 1/30th sec ( very very slow for handheld especially with this lens )

18901377170_1b02be57f3_b.jpg
 
Yes you're correct - The Lens zooms to a 35mm equivalent range through 18-55mm.
please don't add unnecessary detail. It's not a 35mm equivalent. a lenses focal length is a physical attribute (not a debate for here).:)
 
EDIT- Apologies, I confused my self with EF. I don't own a Canon, I'll stick to commenting on the brands i have a clue about! (& Thank you for clarifying)
 
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If you say so.

EDIT- Apologies, I confused my self with EF. I don't own a Canon, I'll stick to commenting on the brands i have a clue about!

It's not about the brand.

People get confused and equate focal length with field of view - the camera industry helped them fall into this when they developed small sensor DSLR's which they added a crop factor to (caused as much confusion as it cures).

In the old days, we just worked with the fact that a 90mm lens was a short telephoto on 35mm, a std lens on a 6x7 and a wide angle on a 5x4 plate camera. No-one talked about crop factors or focal length equivalents, we just got on with it. So a 90mm lens on a crop camera? It's still 90mm - but it's a medium telephoto (or as the common parlance has it 150mm equivalent :mad:).
 
Agreed that the focal length from the sensor does not change irrespective of the mount and brand (Presuming it is designed to fit that camera and match up the register distance etc), But its easy to put a 35mm EF lens on an EFS mount camera and be surprised that the FOV is different due to the sensor being smaller. That for a beginner, is something to recognise.
That was the point i was trying to make- which was incorrect, as there never was an EF lens mentioned initially. D'oh.
 
Apologies Royroy for the comment, to add something a little more constructive could I ask what shutter speed you were using for the first shot. It may not be a focus issue at all, this may be just too slow a shutter speed causing a slight blur from camera shake. With the camera you have you could increase the ISO. If you don't understand what I mean google it, and the three things that determine exposure (exposure triangle) which are aperture, shutter speed and sensitivity (ISO). By increasing the ISO the senser can cope with less light and still produce a decent image (on your camera upto ISO 1600, maybe even higher, will be fine). Doing this will allow a faster shutter speed than if the ISO was set to 100.

Good luck with your next shoot.
 
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Apologies Royroy for the comment, to add something a little more constructive could I ask what shutter speed you were using for the first shot. It may not be a focus issue at all, this may be just too slow a shutter speed causing a slight blur from camera shake. With the camera you have you could increase the ISO. If you don't understand what I mean google it, and the three things that determine exposure (exposure triangle) which are aperture, shutter speed and sensitivity (ISO). By increasing the ISO the senser can cope with less light and still produce a decent image (on your camera upto ISO 1600, maybe even higher, will be fine). Doing this will allow a faster shutter speed than if the ISO was set to 100.

Good luck with your next shoot.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-exposure.htm
 
Agreed that the focal length from the sensor does not change irrespective of the mount and brand (Presuming it is designed to fit that camera and match up the register distance etc), But its easy to put a 35mm EF lens on an EFS mount camera and be surprised that the FOV is different due to the sensor being smaller. That for a beginner, is something to recognise.
That was the point i was trying to make- which was incorrect, as there never was an EF lens mentioned initially. D'oh.

But that's the source of my frustration. The beginner won't notice a difference, he has one camera, one lens. It's an 18-55 which on his camera is a WA to short tele. Exactly what a std zoom should be.

He doesn't know or need to know that those numbers mean something else on a camera he doesn't own :(.

edit: I should have kept quiet, this is dragging the thread away from the topic which is the opposite of my original point.
 
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I love the way this thread has now become really helpful to the op. It's this kind of help and support which helped me move from a complete novice to where I am now (y)
 
Don't worry about the sarcastic replies. Your header clearly says beginner and we all began somewhere. I apologise if you think I was taking the pee - I wasn't.

If you select the focus mode to single point. You can then move the single point to a suitable position using your joypad, to enable the point to be over the eye. Focus on the eye nearest the camera, but hopefully your aperture will be suitable to have both eyes in focus.

Do keep posting. It's the surest way to quick improvement. You can ignore the irrelevant comments and learn from the useful ones.

Keep going

S
To the OP
Just read this and ignore almost everything else here.
 
Lets turn that frown upside down, and provide RoyRoy more useful advice rather than debate & disagreement. We'd mentioned above that it wasn't the place for it here, after all!

RoyRoy, Apologies for my posts 25 & 27 above, please dismiss.
 
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